


Signal Loss

by Gazyrlezon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (but there is some Lumax), (in a way I guess), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Oh also, WILL be rendered non-canon as soon as s3 comes out, Will Byers Has Powers, most is about friendship, tagged this as generic; there are relationships but they are not the main focus, though I might veer off into other stuff at times, will probably add more characters as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-03-08 05:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: “I’m Will Byers, from Hawkins.” How far might the connection reach? “from Hawkins, Indiana. Where are you?”Static. Only static. Will had almost given up, when—“It’s so dark.” It was a sound close to crying. “Papa says I was bad again, but it’s so dark. I’m—”It broke off, and Will heard only static.For years, Will had a secret friend whom he could contact only through his supercomm. But then he was away for a week, and then in hospital, and when he finally got back home to call his friend again they were long gone.(diverges a couple months after season two)





	1. Prologue: Static

Half-crying already, Will threw the door closed behind him. Jonathan wasn’t home. Why wasn’t he home? Now he was alone. Sobbing, Will fell onto his bed and drew the blanket over his head. 

He still heard them. Will drew the blanket close, tried to press it into his head, but … no use. He knew he’d still hear them even after they had stopped; by now it was _(WELL_ _MAYBE IF YOU’D BE A BETTER MOTHER)_ in his head _(THEN HE WOULDN’T BE_ _THE SORRY FAG THAT HE IS NOW JUST LOOK AT HIM)_ routine. If Jonathan were here he would come and help him think _(WHAT HAVE YOU MADE OF MY SON)_ of something else, but in his room alone only sleep could bring release, and Will could not fall asleep when it was not even six. 

_(OH JUST GO AWAY LONNIE HOW DARE YOU SPEAK THAT WAY OF YOUR_ _SON)_

Will pressed the covers close, trying in vain to silence it, clear his mind from it— 

_(HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT MAYBE IF YOU WEREN’T SHOUTING AT_ _HIM ALL THE TIME THEN MAYBE HE’D ACTUALLY BE WILLING TO TALK TO_ _YOU)_

It didn’t help. Of course it didn’t. Even their words were unimportant, as insignificant that his mum would be willing to whip up heaven and earth in her sons’ defense if that was Lonnie’s subject for today. Maybe he’d think of it later, but for now all there was were shouts. He should’ve gone over to Lucas. He’d used to do that a lot, but his father was against it. And in either case—Mr and Mrs Sinclair’s house could provide a safe few hours, but there was nothing that could help against Will’s own thoughts, or the shards of broken beer bottles on the floor. So instead Will just tried to forget _(WHY WOULD I TALK TO_ _SOME FUCKING FAGGOT WHO’S CALLING HIMSELF MY SON)_ about it whenever he found it possible. 

At school, with his friends, that worked. It was never gone, but he could keep it hidden—mostly just simmering below the surface, though on occasion it would bubble up, no warning given. This he hated most; Will would suddenly get angry and irritate his friends—they didn’t know, of course they didn’t know, they _couldn’t_ know; and that only made him even _more_ angry. Look at the freak, can’t even have conversations with the kids he calls his friends! 

And then he’d get home, and … that was another matter entirely. This was a cheap house, with thin walls and thinner rooms, and bore his fingers into his ears however hard he could, it could offer no protection from the shouts. 

Jonathan … hate flooded Will suddenly, for Jonathan and for his stupid job. If Jonathan were here … it would be no better, but at least they could pretend. If each thought that the other was better, they could drag each other back from crying. 

_(SHUT IT LONNIE YOU’RE OUT DRUNK ALL DAY AND THEN YOU GET HOME_ _AND HAVE THE NERVE THE THE NERVE TO INSULT ME AND TO BULLY OUR_ _SONS AND—)_

But Jonathan had shifts. Will was alone. 

_(WELL WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO, HUH? GET WORK YOU SAY I CAN’T_ _GET WORK SINCE THE—)_

Two people might be in this house with him, but Will was very much alone. 

And the world consisted only of his parent’s screams. 

_Then, Will, why do you listen?_

But how can I not? Even if he somehow sneaked into Jonathan’s room—which meant opening the door and walking down the hallway in plain view—and got the Clash playing as loud as it got he’d probably still hear them, and then his father’d hear and come storming in, and, and— 

Will had an idea. Just last week had been his birthday, and after Lucas and Mike had already had one he’d finally gotten his own supercomm to _(OH GREAT SO NOW HE CAN_ _HANG OUT WITH HIS LOSERS WITHOUT EVEN LEAVING THE HOUSE I WON’T_ _EVEN KNOW IF HE TALKS TO THESE FAGS)_ talk to his _(JUST LOOK AT THE_ _BOYS HE HANGS OUT WITH THEY’RE CORRUPTING HIM THEY TELL_ _HIM THAT IT’S OKAY TO BE THAT KIND OF A WEAKLING FREAK)_ friends. 

Of course he couldn’t talk to them now. What if Mike heard? With Mike especially, it was hard to hide; they told each other most everything and it was hard to explain why they never met at Will’s house. He couldn’t risk that, not with Mike, and not with Lucas neither. But if he’d find a channel that was all static and set it only on receive, and then pressed that to his ear— 

—maybe that’d drown the world out. 

A moment he hesitated. Getting the supercomm meant leaving the covers. Will did his best to be quick; throw them away, grab the supercomm, back to safety. Fumble for the buttons in the dark beneath the covers. There, static. 

It didn’t do wonders, but even a little better was a welcomed new line of defenses. 

He’d never be sure how long he just lay there, waiting, hoping only to hear Jonathan knocking at his window (sometimes he’d do that, in order to avoid the front door). No knock came. 

But instead— 

A crack. Huh. Maybe someone else was on this channel? 

There were half-dried tears on his face as he, cautiously, took the supercomm and pressed the send-button. He prayed to God that this would not be Mike or Lucas, and then, in his shaky voice, spoke. 

“Hello?” 

First, nothing. But then … _there!_ Another crack, a short moment without static and instead … it’d sounded like the sound of someone breathing. 

“Hello, this is Will Byers. Do you copy?” 

Again, for a seemingly endless time there was nothing, until— 

“Yes.” The voice was weak, as if whoever spoke wasn’t quite sure of himself. Or herself? Will could not forget his parents, but the mystery on the other end of the supercomm at least pushed them back. 

“Hello, who are you? I thought no one used this channel. _Where_ are you?” 

After a short moment of deliberation, Will considered that if he asked so many questions, it was only polite to provide answers, too. 

“I’m Will Byers, from Hawkins.” How far might the connection reach? “from Hawkins, Indiana. Where are you?” 

Static. Only static. Will had almost given up, when— 

“It’s so dark.” It was a sound close to crying. “Papa says I was bad again, but it’s so dark. I’m—” 

It broke off, and Will heard only static. 

“Hello? _Hello?_ Do you copy? _Are you still there?_ ” 

Nothing. 

Still beneath his covers, Will was racing through questions and possibilities. Who had spoken? And _why_? Was this perhaps some joke? Try as he might, but Will could not make sense of it. _Papa says I was bad._ That was easy enough to understand, but _it’s so dark?_ Why, and how? It was broad daylight outside. Had who had spoken been locked into a cellar? 

And _who?_. It had sort of _sounded_ like a girl, but between fragmentation by static and fluctuations he was far from sure. But he—she—had sounded scared. Wherever she was, things were clearly not well on her end, either. 

Again and again he tried to find some sort of a hint at a solution, but without success. The girl—if it was a girl—would no longer answer. 

Only when his parents finally stopped their argument—well, his father appeared to have gone out to drink—did Will noticed he’d tuned them out. This was good—what a glorious feeling! He’d forgotten them!—but also the worst thing that could’ve hapened—now they were on his mind again. 

He heard a bang, and guessed that must’ve been the front door. His father had left for the bar. 

Shortly afterwards there was a cautiously knock on his door. But even at the second knock Will remained silent. Then his mother came in; but Will hid himself further under the covers. 

“Hey, Will?” She might try to make her voice soft, but it was cracked, too, strained from exhaustion. He loved hearing it, but he hated it, too. “I’m sorry about … all this.” 

Should show himself? But—there was a treasonous thought: _Be sorry!_ it thought, _be_ _sorry, woman; you do not need to hide all this away every time you are at school._ No. He knew that wasn’t fair. Of late, she often looked just as tired and exhausted as Will felt, and he figured that she had to hide, too, when she went to work, but … he didn’t want to see her. Not now. 

For a moment, he could feel her hand through the covers, petting the place where his head lay hidden. He almost leaned into it. 

But no, he would not relent. He heard the sound of his mother apologizing a second time without really paying attention, and then listened to her steps as she left the room and closed the door again. 

He remained like this for another half-hour, until Jonathan came home and got him out. 

Later, when it was time for dinner (only just the three of them), he was ready to look his mother in the eyes again. He would not apologize for earlier (and neither did she ask him to), but he told her of school, and after that he let her help him with his homework. She gave him a good-night kiss when he had to go to bed, and, after a little hesitation, he gave her one, too. 

The next day he spent trying to pick up the girl’s (still no way to be sure, but in his mind had illustrated her as a girl, his age, lonely with a supercomm in some dark place) signal again. 

Maybe she would understand. 

  

* * *

  

Three months passed before he heard her voice again. Even after that, their conversations remained short and spotty, and sometimes months passed in between. Yes Will would never forget her; whenever he had the time he’d turn his supercomm to that same channel and hope she’d speak. 

He never learned much about her, though. When they spoke she was always locked into a small, dark room, but the few times she attempted to tell him more her words came slow and spotty; Will wondered if maybe English wasn’t her first language. 

So instead he told her of him. Somehow he, who had hid his parent’s arguments from everyone, could tell all to some stranger on a supercomm. And he told her about his days, too, about school, even ordinary things like trips to the supermarket (it wasn’t easy; typically they wouldn’t exchange more than six, maybe seven sentences, and it’d often be weeks and months until they had another chance to speak). 

He was overjoyed when his father finally left, and he told her that too. Quietly he wondered what her position was; was there any hope for her to get away from whoever made her life so bad? The one time he had guts enough to ask there came no answer. 

But he never told anyone else about her. Well, he couldn’t. She knew about the state his family was in; what if she told Mike or Lucas? Or, a year later when middleschool had started, Dustin? 

But he never stopped calling her. 

Until, one week, he was gone. And when he came back _(was brought back, dragged back,_ _chocking, infected, almost dead)_ he wouldn’t touch the supercomm for _months_. Mike told him they’d heard him through that, which meant that somewhere, this useful little black plastic box held a connection with the place where he’d been, and now Will felt disgust if he must so much as touch it. 

Close to a year later, when he’d finally convinced himself that this was mere paranoia, the girl on the other end was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It has been too long since I have published something here; I hoped you liked it. The next chapter will not be as dark, I promise (among other things, it features a birthday party!)
> 
> I've started writing this last summer, and since then it has grown into some monstrous beast of a fic (right now, it has at least 30 chapters). It is not yet quite finished, but if I do not publish it now I will probably edit it to death until it never sees the light of day. Also season three is coming out sometime, and I want to be done before it completely messes all my theories up ;)
> 
> Oh, one final point: I'm never sure how to rate these things. Usually I don't tick any of the easy checkboxes (graphic violence, non-con sex, etc.) but I'm also not sure if that alone qualifies this fic as "General Audiences". However, here are some things that I've done so far with this: mentions of violence, racism, and homophobia (the last also internalised), angst, loss of belief that the world one sees is real and more sweet waffles than are probably healthy (though at least one has been burnt black!). Oh, and there's some unnecessary references to Voltaire and Descartes, and at least one case of gratuitous Latin. So as a rough guess, I've made it "teens and up" for now.
> 
> (Constructive) criticism is always welcome.
> 
> Next chapter will probably be up within two days or so. Until then, have fun reading (and also—even more important—writing your own things!),
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	2. Mike: Old Abandoned Pathways

The pathway through the forest lay silent and abandoned, with every step into the thick layer of snow an effort in itself. A few weeks ago there’d been tractor-tracks here which had made it easier, but since then there’d been new snow and now nothing was left. 

Nothing, except for one thin, long, lonely track cutting through the frozen snow, in which Mike walked. 

The air was crisp-cold, the temperature low enough that he had been forced to wear that hideous, overtly-trendy horrible but also warm jacket which his mother’d bought for him the week before Christmas, when it’d started to snow in earnest. Oh, yes, maybe she had meant it well, maybe she had even noticed how much he was outside, or how much he shivered whenever he came home, but that didn’t mean he had to like the thing he’d found on his bed one morning. Besides, what right had he to feel cold? He was not Will, who with five jackets on still shivered. 

Still, it was warmer than the already-to-small jacket he still had from last year. 

Around him, the trees were bare. What little undergrowth had been there during summer and autumn was long gone, cut down or simply frozen, and Mike could’ve easily avoided the wide swerves this path made as it wound itself up the hill and directly cut his way towards the cliff. Two years ago, he would’ve done just that. 

No. Back then he’d have called this forest Mirkwood, and he wouldn’t have been here at all, not on a day as cold as this one. But if, for some reason, he had been, he’d have been happy to stray far from the way. He’d have explored it, maybe would’ve even looked out for giant spiders that held Bilbo and his traveling company in their nets—but that was past now. This forest wasn’t Mirkwood; any name from his long-time favorite author would’ve sounded much too cheerful for the place where, just a few hundred yards down the hillside, the Demagorgon had first taken Will. 

Mike walked past a spot where, in summer, one could get the best kinds of raspberries and blackberries, fresh from the plants and right by the wayside. Frozen, now, bending deep under the snow’s weight. Mike regarded them for a moment before walking on. There were icicles, too; hanging down from now-naked branches. In years past he might’ve taken one, licked it like an ice-cream, but he didn’t now. Who could, after all, know, _truly_ know, what kind of water was frozen up in there, here were the barriers were thin and portals frequent? 

No icicles, then. Mike walked on, slowly creeping up the hill. 

When he reached the top of the cliff, he paused for a moment, less to admire the view over the old abandoned quarry and more to catch his breath. A smile hushed over his face. _Yes,_ he thought, _still me, Mike Wheeler. Doing this walk almost every week and still running out_ _of air_. To be fair, the path wasn’t cleared from snow. It was made for the summer, for the hikers on their way from Hawkins over to Jacksonville. Except, of course, it wasn’t. But in Hawkins people told each other it was merely the hiker’s path; easier not to mention the closed quarry and its lost jobs. But originally, this had been a road for the trucks which had brought the stone away, from Hawkins to Hell-Knows-Where and then out the state. 

Not that Mike had lived through it; he only knew this because Will’s dad had used to work here. Maybe back then he’d not been quite the fuckup he was now. 

In any case, now the quarry was as abandoned as the road that led up to it, which was to say: in the past month, only one person had been here at all, and that person had been Mike himself. That way, at least, he could walk in his own tracks and didn’t have to work himself through foot-high snow every time. Plus his mum would’ve gone mad otherwise, if she’d seen the state of his jeans after pushing through all that dirty snow. 

When he some strength had returned to him Mike walked on, downwards now, along the cliffedge. The quarry was not why he’d come out here. Only once did he stop to look down across the frozen lake below, at a spot where the row of thin sickly bushes and trees along the edges stopped. Here the edge was free. Should he walk up to it? He’d done so before. There, just a few feet further, was where he’d jumped. Maybe another mile or two from here they’d witnessed the police dragging Will’s body out of the waters. 

He always stopped here, and always wondered why. It wasn’t a pleasant place to be. It was exposed, and the cold harsh winds here cut deep into his face and made his skin go numb, but Mike never could walk past it. Finally he continued on. 

Twenty minutes later he was at an altogether different place. The only thing it had in common with the viewpoint above the quarry was that it, too, commanded a good view of the surrounding lands. Except he didn’t see the lake in the quarry from here. 

He saw a long fence, an abandoned checkpoint, and behind it all that the ruins of a secret and since then abandoned national laboratory. 

Mike knew a good, easy-to-climb tree right next to the fence—secretly he fancied that maybe it was even the tree from where Lucas had watched the lab the year before—and tried to get comfortable on its lower branches without chafing his skin raw or having his fingers frozen to the bark. 

Below him, the lab lay in silence. The front gate was closed and locked, with wooden barricades behind to make sure no one got any ideas. The government had moved out and left the building to rot on its own; He wondered why; was it just too much of a hassle to tear it down or was there still something inside that meant demolishing was impossible? 

Yet even through his binoculars—the first few times he’d come out here he’d always borrowed Lucas’s, but he’d saved his allowance and finally bought his own now—no form of activity. 

Mike lay in that tree for an half-hour, his skin slowly freezing, his hands and lips becoming rather more blue than Karen Wheeler would’ve found acceptable—but she wasn’t here and therefore wouldn’t notice. 

But like some prey that knew it was being watched the lab remained lifeless throughout all of it. 

It’d been empty for three months now, but it’d not ever left Mike’s thoughts. And it seemed that neither would Mike ever leave the lab. Sure, he wasn’t here all the time; he slept at home, he went to school, went over to his friends or invited them to his house for a new campaign … but in the end he’d always come back here, to the fence, staring at the walls of that cross-shaped building hidden in the forest that was no longer Mirkwood. When he was here Cornwallis and Maple Street seemed a thousand miles away, almost as if _they_ were the odd, unreal things in his life instead of the building down there beyond the fence. Only one person besides himself knew about these trips, and that was El; but whether he’d told her because he trusted and loved her or because she herself was connected to the lab Mike wasn’t sure. 

Finally, Mike climbed back down and went up to the gate. 

He searched the ground for something. 

The road was solid concrete, but the trail next to it was not; it was full of gravel. Mike picked up a bunch of likely-looking rocks and used them for target practice—he’d gotten himself a slingshot not unlike Lucas’s wristrocket a month ago. By now he’d gotten good enough with it to shoot out the cameras around the entrance to the lab. That was illegal, he guessed, but it wasn’t like anyone still needed them. And if no one arrested him for it than at least that was some indication that the lab really was abandoned. Besides, he felt safer knowing that they weren’t operational. He’d gotten the last camera a week ago, so now he just tried to shoot as accurately as possible, using the already shot-in cameras as makeshift targets; no way to know when that skill might come in handy. He’d not been very good at first, but he felt like he was slowly getting better. 

Today, he shot ten rocks; three of them successful. None hit a camera, but two at least scraped the pole on which the cameras were mounted; the third one just went wild and struck the gate instead. _FUCK THE POLICE_ , the graffito written there in huge black letters, remained unimpressed. 

Mike felt mildly proud of that. The spraying was his work. He guessed he’d not really meant _the police_ as a whole when he’d written that—someone, after all, had to keep the peace—but more the particular branch of it that he’d encountered here in Hawkins, and one officer in particular. He would’ve written something more specific, too, but he couldn’t risk it being traced back to him. There was a reason he’d begun to spray out here after he’d been caught smearing on the bathroom stalls. 

His final rock just scraped the fence, disinterested in what Mike wanted it to do. 

On normal days _(but was there such a thing?)_ he would’ve turned round now and followed the road back through the forest that wasn’t Mirkwood any more all the way to Cornwallis and then further into town until he’d finally reach Maple Street and his hideously okay home at the end of the cul-de-sac, where they were all patriots in this house. 

Today, though, he had somewhere else to go. It hadn’t been easy, but after months of working on the Chief’s unrelenting frown the man had finally given in. When Dustin had invited them all to his birthday party in November and El hadn’t been allowed to come, Hopper had made the mistake of promising El her own birthday party, in their little cabin, set on the one-year anniversary of her meeting the Chief in the forest that wasn’t Mirkwood. 

And what, really, was the worth of a birthday party if you didn’t get to invite any friends? 

Last time he’d seen her had been at the Snow Ball; in early February that was almost two months ago. Sure, they talked at least once a week now, in a weird combination of his supercomm and her powers, but … that wasn’t the same. 

Mike took a final look at what he’d sprayed on the gate. He didn’t _think_ Hopper knew that it’d been him, and hoped the man hadn’t guessed that the words were meant for him. Sure, he’d kept El safe, and fed, and under a roof. But he’d also locked her in for almost a year, and Mike didn’t feel like forgiving that anytime soon. El had confessed to him that shortly before everything had gone to hell again she’d almost blown the shed up out of sheer frustration, had accused the Chief of being nothing more than another version of the man who’d kept her in a lab her entire life. He understood that, somehow, El had come to terms with it, and even he himself often found it all too easy to trust the Chief, to forget—but he still knew. He could spend hours with the man and never think of it—he _had_ spent hours with him, arguing again and again and again that a birthday without friends was no birthday at all, come on, Hopper, and you already wouldn’t let her have a proper Christmas—and yet sometimes it’d flash through. Sometimes, Mike just wanted to scream at the world. At the government, at the police and secret agencies, at the whole damn system. At his dad. 

_Your friends jump of a cliff, you jump to?_

Well, he knew his answer. He’d been the first to jump, and always would be, thank you very much. 

In any case, Hopper had relented in the end, and by four in the afternoon Mike had carefully maneuvered around Hopper’s traps and was knocking on the door. 

It opened, and Dustin stood behind it. 

“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been here for almost an hour!” 

“Sorry,” he said, “made a detour.” 

“Well El’s been waiting for you!” 

Stepping inside, Mike took a look around. A bit rustic, he supposed—his parents certainly wouldn’t be happy here—but comfortable. A small kitchen crammed into one corner, a table and two chairs, a small couch. Two wooden doors presumably led to El’s and Hopper’s bedrooms. Since he couldn’t see the Chief, Mike figured he must probably be behind one of those. Will wasn’t here yet, and neither was Max—weird, given that Lucas _was_ , he was sitting on the couch, with El and a stack of Eggos. 

_El!_

He went to the couch. 

“Mike!” 

El stood up and ran into his arms. For a wild moment, Mike was reminded of the night when she’d come back, where they’d hugged before saying as much as hello. Hell, it wasn’t like he’d seen her much since then. Only twice, and the first time had been that same night later, once they’d all come back, when she’d been too exhausted to speak and Mike had still smelled of gasoline, and then again only at the Snow Ball … but not since. And now she was here, really, physically, _here_ ; it almost took his breath away. No, in fact, it _did_ almost take his breath away; El’s embrace was crushing him. 

“Stop!” he joked, “You’ll get snow all over you!” 

Well, he supposed El didn’t care. And, in all honesty, he didn’t either. 

Their embrace held for a while. 

“Oh, _Jesus,_ you trying to strangle each other?” 

Neither of them had heard Hopper coming into the room, and both ignored his voice. For a second a thought perverted Mike’s mind _(he’s trying to separate us!)_ ; for a second the hate from that day when he’d found out was back and boiling again. No, they weren’t strangling each other, and he wouldn’t separate from her just because of a throwaway comment. The man had kept them apart for much too long; Mike would not be told how long he could hug El. In fact, he’d have drawn her in closer, if that had been possible (it wasn’t). 

She was warm, he realized. Of course she was, she hadn’t been outside wandering through the snow for two hours, nor had she hurled stones at cameras next to barricaded gates. Still, it came like a shock to him. When you were away from someone for too long, he’d found, their very existence became a sort of abstract thought, and then once you stood before them the pure knowledge that they were alive and well and just physically _there_ was almost too much to handle. El was _here_ , here, here, here, she wasn’t just some dream he’d had every night before falling asleep, she was _real_ , she was hugging him right now, he could feel her, smell her hair, her slightly sweaty clothes that hadn’t been washed in slightly too long, could feel how he got warmer again just by pressing her body to his. 

Part of him wanted to stay like this forever. Just like this. Whoever cared about government labs or policemen hiding friends or fucking _dads_? Right-o, no one, that was who. 

Dimly, he was aware that the snow on his backpack melted and was dropping all over the floor. That reminded him … 

“Okay, El, you really should let go now. I’ve got a something for you in my backpack, and I can’t get it out like this.” 

“Oh.” Slowly they separated. She smiled, almost giggled, and Mike felt like he’d just woken up to a bright summer day from a long dark dream. “I missed you.” 

“We talked every night,” he reminded her. “But I missed you too. And I’m sorry I’m so late.” 

Somewhere, Lucas was making playful gagging noises. _Shut up,_ Mike thought idly, _you_ _should see yourself and Max sometime, and you meet her every day. In person, too, and not_ _just via fucking mind-melding._

Mike put his backpack down and peeled off his jacket, which, after a frozen afternoon full with snow and tree-climbing, was slightly wet, slightly frozen, and had more mud on it than his mother would like. Mike hardly cared; he dropped it on the ground and forgot it. 

“Here,” he said, jumbling through his stuff, searching for El’s present, “biggest I could find.” 

He’d pressured his mother into letting him go with her to Indianapolis for her annual Christmas-supply tour, which was no easy feat. But he’d searched for something pretty specific, and he’d figured that, the larger the city, the more the bookstores had to offer. 

Now, handing it to her, a short burst of _(what if she doesn’t like it?)_ anxiety burst through his stomach. El took it carefully. Slowly, she unwrapped it. The thing had almost two hundred pages, all of them in thick glossy picture paper; it was _heavy_. El took a moment to figure out what it was; to her, reading was still work. 

“ _From Belgium to America to Sc-Sca_ ”—what an unfamiliar word—“ _Scandinavia: The_ _Ultimate Waffle Book. More than eighty recipes in hundreds of variations_. Oh. _Oh._ ” 

For a moment she stared at the book, and at its cover, which showed in bright glossy colors a large rectangular waffle, with whipped cream on top and strawberries and chocolate sauce. Then, slowly, she put it down on the table, next to a pair of binoculars and a plant book, as well as an unreasonably large pile of sweets and cans of pudding: those, Mike guessed, must be from Lucas and Dustin. 

Then she smiled. And jumped right back into his arms. 

“Thank you.” Her voice was low now, almost silent; that special sincere tone she always used to say something particularly important. Mike smiled so hard his face ached and didn’t even notice that he did. 

He would’ve answered, too, but this time he really _did_ find it quite impossible to do anything but stand there and babble slightly as she pressed every last bit of air out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did promise you a birthday party :)
> 
> I think my Mike is a bit more rebellious than most other takes on him; I guess between him stealing Nancy's money and Ted's vague references to trouble at school I got a little carried away.
> 
> The next two chapters will be short, but also important. And in the meantime I leave you to wonder with Mike about what Max is up to.
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter,
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	3. Will: Drawings from The Winter

Biking home in winter was always a hassle, but with his mum at work and Jonathan still at school Will simply had no other option; the edge of Mirkwood wasn’t the kind of place a school bus would stop at. And even if it had been; a bus would have cost him money that he would rather spend on books or comics or new crayons. 

So Will biked home. Underneath five layers of clothing, gloves, and bobblehat, he still managed to feel the cold. 

When he arrived he could already feel himself shivering, and he rushed to get inside before his just barely contained panic would erupt. Door closed. 

Warmth, Will, warmth, it is warm here, almost hot, cantcha feel it? 

Slowly, he peeled himself out of jackets, gloves, and boots. He was sweaty underneath, but paid that no mind; instead he started rubbing his hands together, to try and get them warmer. 

Finally the shadow went away; Will rushed into his room. One hour before Jonathan would pick him up. Not much time, and yet Will suddenly had an absurd urge to take a hot shower, comb his hair, get a new set of clothes on. 

Today he’d meet El. 

A few days previously it had come to him almost as a surprise that he knew next to nothing about her. He knew “Eleven”, the concept, the mysterious girl Mike would talk about. And he knew the flash of a memory, a warm burst of bright light in the bleakest of places at the darkest of times that’d kept him going. And he knew that, somehow, these were both one and the same. 

But how was he to reconcile that comforting presence that had given him strength to run for a final time before being overpowered and overgrown with Mike’s stories of a girl with a shaved head standing frightened in the middle of a thunderstorm? Maybe he could if he knew her … but well, that was exactly the thing. He didn’t. 

And Will figured he only had himself to blame for that. He could’ve said hello during the Snow Ball. The entire time she’d been there, and if she’d spent it all clinging to Mike and dancing, so what? That wasn’t a reason to ignore her. And yet he had. But … after he’d been dragged into that dance by an almost-stranger who called him by that most hated of nicknames _(zombie boy you’re zombie boy you’re dead_ _and nothing but a zombie you should be dead you should no longer exist)_ Will had simply forgotten about everything else. Once he’d gotten home and thrown himself on his bed—no, not his bed but Jonathan’s, his brother had always had the better stereo and that day he’d been away at Nancy’s—and let the Clash blast through his head in the vain hoped that it’d make him better … well, he’d only had to hear the first riffs of _Should I Stay or Should I Go_ , and he’d remembered. El. 

But by then it’d been too late, with not a word exchanged. 

They could’ve talked. Surely Mike would’ve introduced them—if introductions were even necessary—and they could’ve just … well, said hello. Thanks, you know, for restoring my faith in life. Oh, come on, no big deal, I wanna dance, do you wanna dance? Let’s dance. Hey Mike, you wanna dance as well? Okay, then we’ll dance all three. 

Of course, that was only an imagined fantasy conversations; even in his head it sounded stupid. But, even so. The opportunity had been there, and Will had missed it. Utterly. Just because he’d gotten all headless over a damn nickname. 

Afterwards, Mike had told him El had asked where he’d been, but that he’d been gone by then. 

That had almost been worse. He’d stood in front of Mike, face burning, forced to admit that there _was_ no answer, no good reason why he’d not been there. 

So today, Will was determined that he _would_ talk to her. He’d made a plan. Or rather, a gift. A gift that was as much a reminder for himself as it was a present for her. 

Not that this came without its own fears. 

There was no point in a shower, Will supposed. No point in trying to wash out slime and dirt that hadn’t been there in over a year. Instead, he forced himself to go into his room. 

It was El’s birthday today. Except, what did you get someone whom you didn’t know as a birthday present? Sure, there were always the standard things. Candy, or something similar. He’d have managed to scrape enough of his allowance together to buy her a pound of chocolate if he wanted to. But Will felt like that’d be nothing but a gift which screamed that he had no idea who she was. It’d be like saying, hey, I guess you’re important enough to warrant a present, but not quite important enough for me to _actually_ care about who you are. 

He sat down on his bed. He’d prepared for this for weeks, had spoken it through with Jonathan, then with Mike; he’d even asked Nancy and Max, since they were the only girls he was friends with. 

It was in the bottom drawer of his desk. Will sighed and took it out. 

A binder. There were nineteen just like this one stored in a long row on his shelf; usually he’d fill one or two a year. With Lonnie as his father there’d never been many constants in his life, but this was one. The first had been a present from Jonathan when he’d still been in kindergarten. Until then his drawings would just lie around and get lost; his room had been an eternal mess of paper scraps. But ever since that first one he kept everything he drew neatly in those binders—at least the stuff his mum didn’t put on the walls. Then she’d bought him a second one once the first one had been full, and even during the darkest times—the darkest times _before_ ; there’d always be a _before_ and an _after_ in Will’s life—when Lonnie had screamed most days and Will’d caught the occasional beating from him, when his drawings weren’t really drawings anymore but merely angry scrawls on paper: once done, they all went into a binder. 

Only once had he ever given one away. That’d been two years ago, on the last Christmas _before_ ; in it had been as many drawings of their DnD party as would fit in. He’d given it Mike, and been quick to mention that the only reason it was for Mike and none of the others was because it was for the whole of the party, which usually met at Mike’s house (this, he’d thought, was a real sneaky way of giving Mike an extra present without having to acknowledge that it _was_ an extra present, with no equivalent for his other friends). 

He was giving away another one now. Except this one very different from Mike’s; Will almost felt disgust at merely touching it. 

Because in this one weren’t just idle drawings of a DnD party. This binder contained, in a very real sense that sometimes threatened to overpower him, Will himself. The Will _after_. The Will he’d become upon coming back to life. The drawings in this one weren’t any he’d ever intended to give away; some he’d even, painstakingly, redrawn a second time because the thought of loosing the original felt too unbearable. 

Will kept the binder closed. He couldn’t bear to look at it, not now. Sighing, he took out his wrapping paper—also self-drawn, but more cheerful, just for today; there were waffles everywhere—and wrapped it in. Then he rummaged through his music drawer and took out the cassette he’d made and wrapped that up, too, and finally strung the two together with a pretty loop on top. 

God, but he hoped she wouldn’t play the cassette while any of his friends where there. 

After he was done, it wasn’t long until Jonathan came to pick him up. Will had already put his jackets on—he had four: a simple sweater jacket over his shirt and undershirt, then a thicker fleece jacket, and above those two more normal winter jackets (old ones from Jonathan; his own wouldn’t fit over all the others). Sometimes it made him sweat a lot—especially in Jonathan’s warm car—but at least he’d never have to feel cold again. 

His brother had a present for El, too; a big mysterious bowl of _something_ that he’d prepared this morning before Will’d gotten up and which had been kept in the fridge since then. And though Will had his suspicions, Jonathan had refused to tell anyone what was inside. 

“How was school today?” Even with the old engine starting up, Jonathan’s voice was quiet, just loud enough so he could hear it. He took them out the driveway and down the road, towards the forest. 

“Okay, I guess.” 

_Thanks, Jonathan, for for noticing._ His brother’s words hadn’t really been a question. It was more like an unspoken offer of something else for Will to think about, so he wouldn’t get stuck or spiral down into memories. 

“Same as always, then. Still boring and annoying.” 

That made Will smile, a little. “Yeah.” He thought for a moment, considering if he should say this, but—“Are you still sure the mixtape was a good idea?” 

Only Jonathan knew anything about the cassette. He had to; between them, Jonathan was the one who owned a microphone, and the one who knew how to mix tapes. 

“I’m sure she’ll love it, what are you worried about?” 

“Yeah. Just …” 

Will turned away, thinking for an answer. Outside the trees hushed past; El’s cabin was well-hidden, deep into the forest. 

Maybe, if he was really honest, there was another layer to his anxiety. Because, objectively, he wasn’t giving her much: A stack of paper that he’d drawn something on, a self-recorded cassette. Nothing of any value, really. 

For him, this was actually above-average. But then, his friends knew him. They knew his family. Years he’d hid it, but finally it’d come out, and it’d come out almost a relief. Now, if he gave Lucas or Dustin or Mike nothing but a few drawings and their favorite candy they knew this didn’t mean Will saw no value in their friendship. Just that … just that he couldn’t afford to spend more on it. But El didn’t know that. It was absurd, of course; she wasn’t some rich kid, she was a girl who had spent most of her life locked up in a lab. More than four fifths of her—and _Will’s_ —entire life; a span so uncomfortably enormous that Will felt like he couldn’t quite process how long that’d really been. But even so. 

He was anxious, and he felt it in every fiber of his being. Every stone that made the car bump, however little, felt like an earthquake. 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Jonathan sounded confident enough. Not enough to sway Will, but enough that … well, that he could focus on the good things. It probably _would_ be fine; Will could deal with a little anxiety. And he’d meet her. After more than a year they’d finally get to say hello. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Welcome back!
> 
> Sorry it took me a little longer to put this one up; there was a lot of stuff happening last week that ate my time.
> 
> Anyways, this chapter is a little shorter (as is the next, which is El's), and it'll still take a while until you learn what's on Will's cassette. Anyone here wants to guess?
> 
> I hope I'll find the time to upload the next one quicker.
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	4. El: Introductions

El was almost disappointed when she heard the car arrive. She’d snuggled herself comfortably underneath her favorite blanket, cuddled close to Mike. He and Jim had agreed for once when they’d both told her this winter was colder than most—El was in no position to judge, since it was only her second. In any case, the cabin had grown chilly with the snow, and few things would force her to leave Mike. 

But Lucas hurried to the door before El even got a chance to sit up. She knew what he hoped; he, Dustin and Max had been supposed to meet Jim at a parking lot where he’d pick them up. Except Max had never shown up. Lucas still held out hope, but … Max didn’t even know where the cabin was. Nor did she have a phone number. 

El could sympathize. She’d been pretty tense before Mike’d appeared, too. Plus, she’d really wanted to meet Max. A second time. The first time … they’d been in the same room; Max had even offered her a handshake. Except El had ignored those, too focused on Will, too overwhelmed by meeting Mike, too preoccupied with the danger they were all in— 

_Stop with the excuses,_ she told herself. _Had you wanted to, you could’ve shaken that hand._ _It was not danger or your friends who kept you back, it was your anger, because since the_ _moment you saw Mike with some new girl you never considered her for who she might be;_ _you only took her as selfish proof that your own life was wrong and could never be normal,_ _not when it kept you from having friends for years while others could make new ones in only_ _a couple days._

She’d been much too slow in realizing this. 

There had been so little time … before she’d known it she’d been away again, and afterwards when she’d woken up back at the cabin only her new outfit ( _MTV Punk_ , Jim’d called it) and the slight remaining smell of smoke were proof that anything had happened at all. 

No, wait. She _had_ seen Max again since then, at the Snow Ball. But they’d not talked there, either. Jim had kept tight limits on El’s time in the dancing crowd, and anyways—how had she been supposed to talk to others when she’d had Mike enveloped in her arms? 

In any case, there was no way this was Max. There were few people who knew where this cabin was, and only one of them was missing. El knew she had to get up now, away from Mike and his waffle-book. 

She had to meet Will. She had, in fact, been dying to meet him; as with Max, somehow she’d never met him before; only once had she seen Will both awake and himself _(he’d been dying)_. She’d never gotten to say anything _(hold out a little longer your_ _mum’s coming!)_ , not even _Hello, I’m that El Mike’s constantly annoying you with,_ _sorry_. 

In a way it was almost like it was with Max, but also not. Something chiseled away at the edge of her memory … she couldn’t focus on it though she was sure she ought to know, like it should be obvious … 

_What?_ It felt like something enormously important had stirred, but … the only time they’d spoken she’d floated in a pool of salt water. She’d barely said three sentences, and he a single word. _Hurry_ _…_

Now she was there just in time; the door opened and Will was there. Lucas stepped aside; could he feel, then, how desperate El was to meet his friend? 

Then suddenly she stood in front of him. 

But for a moment she was stumped. What was she to say? What words, what sentence? It was almost like when she’d first met her friends in the rain. If she spoke, what if she ruined it? How to describe … _Hello Will. You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you how you_ _controlled the lights._

That was no way to start a conversation, was it? What if she scared him, what if his reply would … Hell, she didn’t even know how his _voice_ sounded like. Only on two occasions had she heard it: once distorted through a radio, once when he’d been close to death. Never in normal conversation. They’d never even been in the same _world_. 

To her relief, Will seemed equally lost. Did he think the same? Did he have the same feeling of some forgotten obvious thing? 

“Hi Will!” That was Lucas, who had no such troubles. He got to see Will every day. 

“Hi Will!” That were Mike and Dustin, shouting from further back. 

Will was obliged to answer. “Hi everyone!” 

And with his voice the spell was broken. In a weird way, El supposed they’d just been introduced. 

“Hello Will,” she said. 

El felt she knew what made him hesitate. “Hi El.” 

_Brown,_ she thought, suddenly. _His eyes are brown._ She’d never seen them open before. His hair was brown, too, but lighter than his eyes. She’d only seen it dry once, and it had grown since then. His skin was very light, and he wore at least two thick jackets. Did he still get cold so easily? Suddenly, El had to fight an absurd urge to hug him; maybe she’d only seen him in situations of grave danger, but that didn’t mean he needed comforting _now_ , and especially not from someone whom he hardly knew. 

“It’s nice to see you,” he told her, as if that were something he said to her every day. _Hey_ _El, nice to see you._ Nice to _see_ you. She realized he’d never seen her before. In the bathtub, when they’d talked, she’d not really been there. 

“You too. Nice to see you too.” And it _was_ nice seeing him. Normal. Alive. he looked good, she realized; almost pretty in a quiet way. More than anything, he looked _healthy_. His skin was light, lighter than that of his friends, but it was no longer _pale_ , no longer looked like dried-up paper as it’d done when he’d had the monster inside him. 

El vaguely noticed that though this conversation went slowly, always with long pauses of thought before the next word, it didn’t feel awkward. Well, it did, but not in an uncomfortable way. It was as like … like meeting an old friend whose voice and habits you couldn’t quite remember. 

“We got you something,” he told her. 

At the mention of _we,_ El craned her neck to see if anyone else was there. 

“Me and Jonathan.” 

Ah, yes, there was his brother, grabbing something like a plastic bowl from the trunk of his car. The tripwires were still in place, so he’d parked a little way away. 

“Happy Birthday, El,” Jonathan said as greeting. “Nice to see you again.” 

“Wha—oh, yeah. Happy Birthday, El.” Will face flushed red with embarrassment _(such_ _color! such life!)_ , and he handed her his present. 

El had to stop herself from laughing out loud; that would’ve been a cruel thing to do. And she understood why Will had momentarily forgotten this was her birthday. She had, too. _Happy being-alive day, Will,_ she thought. _Happy meeting-each-other-like-normal-people day,_ _Will._

One look at what he’d given her, and she was smiling. He’d drawn waffles all over the wrapping paper. 

“Thank you,” she said, and finally felt it was appropriate to give in to her urge to hug him. Even with all his jackets Will felt warm, not like Mike who was comfortable and familiar but … warm, uh, so _warm,_ so alive alive alive— 

A little awkward, maybe a little overwhelmed, he hugged her back. 

Jonathan, still carrying his bowl—he had a lid on it, so El couldn’t see what was in it—ushered them inside. “We shouldn’t let the cold come in too much,” he said. Oh, right. She’d forgotten about the cold. She’d been too busy staring at Will’s face, amazed at how his lips moved when he spoke, fascinated by every twitch of every muscle, every one of them a constant proof that this was, in fact, real, that _Will_ was real. 

While Will and Jonathan took their jackets and boots off El walked back to the sofa, put Will’s present on the table to the others—so far there were two books, a set of binoculars, and a stash of candy—and got her waffle book to show it to Will (that this might be rude didn’t occur to her, but given its content Will was almost glad she set it aside). 

That raised a question, though: did Will like waffles? El couldn’t imagine that anyone could _not_ like waffles, but there was no way to be sure. Again, there was this unease. It was as if she ought to know him, but of course she didn’t, not at all. What sort of songs did he like, for instance, what sort of TV? What kind of books? Did he make stupid jokes like Dustin, or was he more serious, like Lucas? Mike had told her a little, but mostly she just knew that Will liked to draw lots and lots. 

To her relief, it quickly turned out that Will _did_ , in fact, like waffles. Together they reviewed her favorites that she’d found so far: large, rectangular ones from Belgium, heart-shaped ones from (West) Germany (the book mentioned, quite clearly, _West_ Germany; El wondered if that meant that there was an eastern one as well, or maybe even a northern and a southern one, too?), large, flat, circular ones almost as thin as a potato chip or like a very crunchy cookie, smaller and equally thin ones, except that these ones were filled with syrup or honey; of many there were variations with banana in the dough or blueberries or even strawberries (she knew those; Jim had brought her some last summer. El, who had only known the forest in winter, had not believed those grew on plants until he’d dug one up and brought the whole bush home), ones with special brown sugar or extra-large sugar grains, ones with chocolate (the idea of which she already liked) or even coffee (which she liked less) as flavoring … 

Will looked through them with her. Some he said he knew, and about those El plastered him with questions; she simply _had_ to know if they’d been any good. 

“We can’t make any, though,” she had to admit at last, a little sad. 

“Don’t have a waffle-iron?” 

She shook her had. 

“Ahm.” They both turned to look at Jim. “Actually …” 

El would not dare to hope, but … 

“Joyce and I, we got you one, kid. Didn’t tell you earlier, thought I ought to wait till—” 

Jonathan put his bowl on the table and took the lid off. 

“Got some dough, too.” 

Had she thought the day could not be any brighter? If so, she’d been wrong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm back! (And it took me another week, not the few days I had planned …)
> 
> So, ahm, I tried to get rid of anyone meeting anyone at the Snow Ball; I hope you'll forgive me for that. But I just couldn't let El's first time actually meeting Will (or Max) happen entirely off-screen. Especially with Will I feel like the show has sort of wasted that moment; I mentally went through the entire two seasons, but I really _cannot_ remember any point where he actually met El (she heard him through the heathkit in S1, and later talked to him while she was floating in the makeshift sensory deprivation tank); maybe she met him after closing the gate at the end of S2, or else it must've been at the Snow Ball, which was also not shown, and by the time S3 will start they already must know each other. I dunno, I just find it really sad that El essentially saved his life twice and we don't even get to see their first time talking to each other—but that's what fanfic is for, after all, so I put it in here.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked reading this,
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	5. Max: Home Sweet Home

Max Mayfield was locked into her room, and not by accident. Not that she’d be too angry about that; her dad had not allowed her to go out today, and since Billy’s fitness obsession had once again taken over the hallway she saw no point in allowing any of them into here. Billy’s taste in music—which even through the door could blast her ears out—was more than enough of them. Sometimes Max wished she still had the nail-bat, but Steve had demanded it back. And, well, as far as she knew it really _was_ his bat, so she guessed she could understand that. 

Except this wasn’t a day like any other normal day. 

And Max was _fuming._ Maybe she and El had not exactly been friends on sight, but between her friend’s assurances that it was probably just some stupid misunderstanding and her own wish to really be part of this weird group she’d really been ready for a second attempt. Plus, after learning even the rough outline of El’s history, Max could understand why she wouldn’t be the most trusting of persons. Hell, she herself hadn’t exactly sprung into the group’s arms when she’d first met them, either. They’d stalked her and she’d dismissed them as crazy, just a bunch of stupid nerds she wanted nothing at all to do with. So in a way, Max felt she could sympathize. 

And for once in her life she wanted to do things right. She honestly wanted to get to know El; maybe they’d never be friends, but … plus, it would be nice to have a girl as friend. The boys were great, sure, but sometimes they just didn’t understand. 

So she had talked to Mike, and Mike had talked to El, and a week later Hopper had met her at the Arcade—still the only place where they could be sure of Billy’s absence—and discreetly handed her an envelope that contained an invitation to El’s birthday party. So far, so perfect. 

But why, _why_ had she ever thought that just leaving it lying around openly on her desk could ever be a good idea? _Of course_ the man she’d only call “dad” once he’d killed her had found it, and of _course_ Billy had let his muscles play and let something slip about “bad company”, and before she knew it that monster of a man had made sure she wasn’t going. And the worst thing wasn’t even that she’d been forbidden to go or that this time, Billy had actually gone to some lengths to _enforce_ that ban (her door was locked from the outside, the shutters on her window closed, her skateboard locked in a cabinet in the living room where Billy did his exercise), or that her step-father and Billy had only told her today, so she wouldn’t have time to set up something with Lucas to escape; no, the worst thing was that she’d been so fucking _stupid_. And now she couldn’t go. She couldn’t even phone anyone to explain _why_ she wasn’t coming, because it’d happened only this afternoon. 

How would she ever get to be friends with El when she didn’t even show up to the girl’s birthday party, without as much as an apology? Of course, she could hope that Lucas might guess at what had happened—he knew her best—but what if he didn’t? She might tell him more than the others, true, but also not everything. And even if he _did_ guess, it didn’t seem fair that her relationship with El should depend on Lucas accurately guessing at what her shithole family had done. Lucas shouldn’t have anything to do with it, he should be eating cake and having fun at El’s party. Sure. Lucas would insist he didn’t care, but Max still burnt with shame every time they met at the Arcade or elsewhere instead of either of their homes. Sometimes when she wasn’t careful to be early Lucas would have to listen to Billy hurling insults at him and then _laughing_ about it like it was all just some sick joke. 

Lucas was nice; he didn’t deserve the shit that came with her. She should’ve taken that as warning, but instead she’d been stupid and now all that shit would be hurled at El, too. 

Oh God. Usually she was better at dealing with this. Why did she feel so bad about this? Where those tears on her face? Maybe it was better, then, that Steve had taken the nail-bat back from her; otherwise her rooms door would be nothing but splinters now, and Billy … how would Billy look if his face was in splinters? 

_Stop it. Don’t be stupid; getting all worked up will not help anyone._ But how could she not be angry? How could she not be seething, fuming, screaming, how could she not rejoice at mental images of Billy on the ground while she towered above him, stronger than him and with the nail-bat in her hand? How could she not wish for another needle to ram into his neck, or the neck of her not-dad? 

_Forget it! Do something else, do anything except this because this is what they’d do!_ But what else to do, what else, what else—determined, Max jumped off her bed where she’d rolled herself up in her blanket, grabbed her schoolbag, took out biology and tried to do her homework. 

Five minutes later she gave up. She’d never much liked biology, but right now she felt like she’d love to tear the book apart. Plus, thinking of biology meant thinking of class, which meant thinking of Mr. Clarke, which meant memories of Dustin’s weird if witty comments, and of Lucas how he shook his head at his friend’s antics and laughed … 

Then maybe English? Three lines into her essay Max noticed that the ratio of swearwords to normal words was far too high even for her standards. She sort of wanted to show it to Lucas, though, if only to embarrass him. He always got so awkward when she swore, it was adorable; and then they’d laugh together and … 

Okay. She needed something mind-numbing. Something where she didn’t have to be imaginative, and something that didn’t require her to dig through memories too much. 

Ideally, also something that would make Billy’s music shut the fuck up, but she such a subject would be magic. 

She took out math. The entire week all they’d done was to simplify terms and fractions into other terms and fractions. She didn’t like it much, either—it was repetitive, it was boring, it involved calculations, and in fact it was her least favorite thing they’d ever done in any class—but she figured she’d had to give it a try. 

To her surprise, it worked. Calculating something seemed to take up a lot of brain-space, so at least there wasn’t any room left for wondering about what Lucas might do right now, or how El would take her not showing up. But it was also _exhausting._ It might bring her relief, but that did not make it easier; in fact, it made it _harder_. The temptation to simply stop and scream was so strong that after every little step she had to wrestle with her mind to keep going, had to reconvince herself that this was better than the alternative, than the worries, than the anger … 

Max kept at it. Usually she never did more than the first few terms anymore, but today she did the whole sheet, down to every last little fiddly fraction that cancelled itself out or could be simplified, and then just to bore herself further she did it all _again_ to see if she’d made any errors (she had, and loads of them), until in the end it was just boring wrong calculations she was fuming about and not her life anymore. 

After that, feeling slightly calmer, she wrote the essay for English. Probably every word was horseshit, but the almost two pages in front of her made her feel like she’d actually accomplished something, and that was good, too. 

The noise that Billy insisted was music still blared through the house, but leaning back in her chair she actually felt slightly better now. Two pages. _See? I could’ve spent today doing_ _nothing, but instead I got all this shit done, so I now have a weekend entirely without_ _worrying about school_ and _even got around Mrs. Andros shouting at me for not having done_ _anything!_

Was that a reason to feel great? What, exactly, would she do all weekend, then? 

_Maybe I can get away tomorrow and meet up with Lucas and the others_ _…_ Max was not about to start feeling bad again, not now when she’d just escaped it. Her own birthday was in barely a month. She had long been resigned to the fact that there wouldn’t be a party with her friends, but maybe she could spend it with Lucas instead. Maybe she could tell Billy and her not-dad she was just going to hang out at the Arcade again and instead Hopper would pick her up and she’d finally meet El. 

Yeah, that would be great. Lucas, being Lucas, had already kind of made her hopeful that for her birthday he’d move heaven and earth to get her a supercomm of her own—he wasn’t very good at hiding secrets, not from her. And with that … he only lived three streets over, surely that’d be within distance? Dustin was only two streets, in the other direction; and as annoying as he got sometimes it be nice to talk to him, too. Mike, Will … those were further, but even if that’d turn out to be _too_ far … if only she could talk to Lucas she’d be happy. Of all the boys he understood her best. 

Ah shit, she was back to square one. Feeling shitty about herself and wanting to talk to Lucas. 

Max glanced at her watch. Two hours she’d dealt with. Okay, what else could she do? Scream through the closed door until her not-brother came in and killed her? At least then something interesting would happen. She didn’t even have access to the TV in here. 

Suddenly she remembered that Will had once told her that he’d used to draw when his father was drunk and occupied the living room. Well, she figured she could try. She didn’t have any colors, though, just a pencil, and only the quad paper of her notebook. 

Ten minutes later she had a bunch of stick-figures who where just as angry at the world as she was. 

Ugh, this was getting her nowhere. 

Why didn’t she know what to do? She’d been living in this crap house for months now, had been forced to be with Billy and his father for more than half a year, and somehow she _still_ didn’t know what to do when they locked her into her room. Not that they did that very often; the door was rarely actually locked. Still, if her father had a beer in the living room or if Billy was doing his exercise, it was effectively the same thing. And somehow she _still_ hadn’t found anything to occupy herself. Somehow, her own failure at dealing with it seemed infinitely worse than the pure fact of the locked door. 

_A month,_ she reminded herself. She could still meet El then, and if she’d managed almost half a year like this, she’d be able to live through one more month. 

_A month._

_Just a month_ _…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here finally is Max!
> 
> It'll get better, I promise.
> 
> (also, sorry that it took me almost two weeks to get this chapter up; I had a lot to do …)
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	6. Will: Heated Irons

El seemed impatient. Well, Will couldn’t fault her, really; who _wasn’t_ excited about birthday presents, even more so if they happened to be edible? Snuggled between Mike and Lucas and Dustin he watched El carefully unpack her waffle iron, ripping apart first wrapping paper and then the box itself to reveal the new, still-shiny metal hidden inside. Hopper plugged it in. Eager to start El took a generous spoon of dough, but Jonathan stopped her short from putting it in. 

“It’s not hot enough yet. See here? Once that light’s out it’s ready.” 

Half a second El looked disappointed. Then, for half a second, El gave the thing an intense stare as if she willed it to jump sideways, and with a little _click_ the offending light went dark. Will felt a rush of hairs rising on his skin like goosebumps, as if some huge unseen shadow had hushed over his back, and then the sharp smell of something burnt filled the cabin. 

“It’s hot now,” El informed Jonathan. 

Will looked at his arms. Nothing. No goosebumps. Strange. 

“Ugh, what’s that stink?” Dustin’s voice was nothing but disgust. 

El was likewise skeptical. “Should it smell like that?” She glanced at Jonathan. 

“Ahm … maybe we should’ve cleaned it first? There was probably all sorts of dust on it …” 

“Oh.” 

Jonathan took a rag and tried wiping the iron clean, but try as he might, the smell remained. Eventually Jonathan shrugged, and poured some oil over it. Then El, smiling widely, got to pour the dough on. A sharp hissing sound was quickly stifled when Jonathan closed the lid on it. Hot fat began to trickle out the iron and drip down onto the table. 

“Oh, for—” Hopper took the rag from Jonathan to try and clean the mess. 

It took ages for the thing to bake; every few seconds El would open the iron to peak and look. Jonathan kept telling her she should stop, though he smiled every time she did it. When they finally took it out it was a pretty nice brown on the upper side, but almost black beneath. 

“I think that was a bit too hot, El.” 

“Whoops.” Again she stared at it. “I’ve cooled it down a little.” 

Another rush of unseen goosebumps flooded over Will, and again when he looked his arms looked normal. Around him, too, everything seemed normal: Dustin on one side next to him was laughing, on the other Mike sat, intently watching El (was that pride which sparkled in his eyes, or gratitude?). Hopper had sunken on a chair, covering his face in his hands, but he seemed happy, too. Lucas was quiet, but he could not feel anything was wrong—if he were, he’d have called alarm. It must be nothing but his nerves, then, anxiety at seeing these powers which had saved his life. Only that and nothing more. Right? 

Jonathan grabbed the ruined waffle and put it in the trash. 

“Probably shouldn’t have eaten that one anyways,” he said, shrugging. “It’s got all the dirt on it. Okay, try again?” Not that he had to ask; El had already loaded another spoon of dough on the thing as he spoke. 

This time she was more patient, and the waffle turned out to be just fine. El took it gingerly. 

“Okay, so now it’s polite to first give your gues—” Hopper interrupted himself; it was already to late. A starving lion would not be quicker in devouring its prey; the waffle had gone down El’s mouth within a second. 

Will didn’t think anyone minded, though. Dustin even laughed, delighted that he’d found somebody who shared his simple joy at eating. 

Jonathan poured the next portion onto the iron while El was still chewing. Finally she swallowed, and gasped for air as if close to drowning. 

“ _Hot_ ,” she complained, and drew a pout. 

Jonathan gave her a look. There were still crumbs left on her lips. “Well …” 

But by then she’d already burst into laughter herself, and they quickly all joined in. 

Before long they all had waffles on their hands (well, except Dustin; his was gone almost as fast as El’s had been). If Will had sensed a slight discomfort before … he felt nothing now. He’d already forgotten it. The taste was too sweet, the day too nice, meeting El too exciting. 

Still, when he later thought back, he supposed that this must’ve been where it had started. Here he’d felt it first. And, fool that he was, he’d entirely failed to notice it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, this time I'm quicker ;)
> 
> (I'm on a train right now, and since there's inexplicably good WiFi here while we're rushing through the middle of nowhere and I've got my laptop with me I thought I might as well do something productive and spend my time editing & publishing …)
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	7. Jonathan: Terra Incognita

When he’d first mixed it all together and gotten a weird and sightly slimy mass Jonathan had been worried, but it appeared his waffle dough was adequate after all. And now, seeing El’s pure and simple joy at something so sweet to eat even he could not suppress a smile. She’d proven to be an attentive student, and a quick learner, too. After her first few half-fluid, half-burnt attempts she was an expert now; and whilst she was baking more waffles all by herself Jonathan got to experience a teacher’s eternal joy and curse: feeling useless when one was no longer needed. 

El offered him another waffle; Jonathan took it gladly. Yep, no denying this, they _were_ pretty good. Who’d known he could do more in the kitchen then just scramble eggs for breakfast? 

This was his third, and he had to take it slowly; but as with any well-made drug, stopping was impossible. 

“Jonathan?” 

He turned; Lucas, too, still held a half-eaten waffle, but he’d stood up now and left the safe haven of chatter which had enveloped the couch. A short moment he hesitated, glancing to the floor, chewing his lip, shivering; Lucas’s mouth worked but no words were coming out. 

_Take it easy,_ Jonathan wanted to say. _Take your time, you’ll get to it._ Few people knew this better than Jonathan, the helpless, trembling feeling of an attempted conversation which one lacked the words for. Except he could not tell Lucas this to comfort it—in some cruel joke, Jonathan lacked the words he’d need to explain the feeling. 

Then Lucas looked at him, showed him his waffle. “They’re real good,” he said, an excuse so obvious that even Jonathan could notice it. 

“What do you mean good, they’re fucking _amazing!_ ” Lucas raised a hand to cut Dustin off. _Not now, please. This is serious_. It must be serious, Jonathan supposed; otherwise Lucas would bite back, abandon this conversation and enjoy bickering with his friend. But instead Lucas turned back to him. 

“But seriously, they _are_ amazing.” 

“Um, thanks, I …” 

Jonathan had seen a shadowy slimy monster crawl through his little brother’s throat; there were few situations left that he could not deal with, but compliments were one of those. What was he supposed to do with it? What to say? He tried hard not to stammer, not to grin too much or look too dumb. 

Thankfully Lucas became more serious again. _A lot_ more serious. Where before he’d spoken loud enough for Dustin to listen in, his voice was now the barest whisper, almost impossible to hear above the party’s chatter in the background. 

“I wish Max was here.” 

Max. The redhead who Will said was now Lucas’s sort-of-girlfriend. He’d heard she’d swung that old nail-bat at her brother. A bit brutal, maybe, but it wasn’t like Jonathan had never dreamed of taking that bat on a spin down to Indianapolis and beat his old man’s door to shreds. 

“She couldn’t come?” 

Lucas bit his lip. A rare sight; the last time Jonathan had seen Lucas truly nervous Will’d been bound on hands and feet, stowed in the back of Jonathan’s car, on his way to an exorcism. When the boys had come to say goodbye there’d been no certainty that it’d work or that Will would safely survive; maybe Lucas, forever their group’s stoic, had been the only one who hadn’t cried … but he’d been no less shaken than the others even if he’d shown it less. 

“That’s just it,” Lucas told him, “Max said she _would_ come. She was supposed to meet me and Dustin, and then the Chief would pick us all up and drive us here. But she just … didn’t show. We waited for a bit, but … maybe … ” 

His eyes were pleading, and Jonathan recognized this tone of voice. How often had he longed to use it, to tell someone else about his father? 

No need for Lucas to elaborate, or torture himself further. Jonathan nodded; he would not leave this Max alone, not without some certainty. For a moment he considered what to do, then talked it over with Hopper. El knew how to make more waffles. No need to disturb the rest of the party. Did Hopper think he could handle being alone in the rabble? The man looked around at the mess, then sighed, said he did, and wait, kid! Don’t you think it’d be better if I—I’ll handle this, Hop. Have fun with the kids. Then a quiet word to Will, a short interruption in a world of happy chattering with Mike and El and Dustin. No need for you to concern yourself with this, buddy, but your brother’ll head out for a bit. Can I come with? No, not now you can’t. Have fun buddy, gonna pick you up tomorrow, sleep well! 

And then they were off into the night. Jonathan would have gone alone, but Lucas had insisted, and Lucas was the only one he could not deny it. 

The drive out the forest was quiet; the sun had long since disappeared, snow on trees and fields muffled any sounds the car might make, and neither of them spoke. Theirs was a grim determination, and some dark fears, but friendship? That was Jonathan and Will, and also Will and Lucas, but not Lucas and Jonathan when Will was not with them. Jonathan knew Lucas, knew what Lucas liked, even knew some jokes that would never fail to make him laugh, but he wasn’t someone he’d hang out with; Jonathan knew Lucas because Will did, and because whenever Jonathan came to pick his little brother up Lucas was there to bother him for just ten minutes more. Even the last two years had only muddled this so far. 

They were halfway into town when it finally occurred to Jonathan that he didn’t actually have to do this. What were Lucas and Max to him but random acquaintances? What proof did he have something was wrong and needed fixing? That Max hadn’t shown up? People didn’t show up all the time. Jonathan should know; he was a loner, and sometimes he _preferred_ to be a loner and not show up to a party even if, under Nancy’s stern stare, he’d said he’d come. Who knew what kind of person this Max was, and what her reasons might’ve been? Not Jonathan; he’d met her, sure, but talked to her? Not much. 

A cynic might’ve said that she just forgot or lost interest, and come Monday she’d be in class as always. 

But this wasn’t that. Lucas seemed to know for his own reasons, and Jonathan … somehow Jonathan knew as well. Call it a hunch, maybe, but one hell of a strong one. Seldom had he felt such conviction. He was no fool; a hundred reasons why this wouldn’t work swarmed through his forehead, a hundred objections to the basis of why he was here driving this car at all, but every one felt only theoretical. The car was real, and Lucas next to him; doubt was not. 

As soon as Lucas had said those few words to him he’d known Max was in distress. No explanation given, but he was as sure of it as he was of day and night and Will still being alive. A fundamental, obvious and non-negotiable fact of life. Some things Jonathan just knew. 

Not long after that, Lucas began to give him directions to her house. And then here they were. A one-story house, nothing special. If not for the fancy car out front it would’ve almost reminded Jonathan of home. 

He turned the engine off; and for a moment they had the night’s cold silence snuggled in between them. Then he turned to Lucas, who’d already gotten rid of his seatbelt: 

“I realize I probably should’ve asked you sooner, but, did you try calling her or anything?” 

He knew the answer before Lucas said a word. Of course he had. And either no one’d picked up or it’d been Billy or his father had hung up once they’d realized who was there. 

“Twice.” How do you call a voice that doesn’t shake, but _wants_ to shake while its owner keeps it still? “First time, Billy said he don’t need people like me. Second time no one picked up.” 

Familiar enough. Sounded almost like Steve’s father, if a bit more aggressive. For a moment a peculiar calm settled over them, one he’d last felt in a kitchen far away, where Murray, Nancy and he himself had sealed envelopes to all the major newspapers so at least a few would publish their story. Here was the Rubicon. Throw up the dice! We’ll soon see how they’ll land. 

“Okay, I’ll head out. You stay here. He knows your face? Yes? Hide. Don’t let him see you.” 

Lucas gave a curt nod, then let himself out on the car’s far side to hide while Jonathan walked up the driveway past the fancy car. 

Screeching noise came from inside, noise which a soul less tasteful than Jonathan might’ve dared call music. Even so, he was mildly impressed. Whatever sort of speakers were blasting off in there, they were a lot better than what he had at home—in volume, at least. Jonathan liked punk, but there was a difference between anger at the world and mere _loudness_. Who knew if the screeching in there was sounding the way it was supposed to, and honestly, who cared? 

He gave the bell a ring without much hope, and was surprised when the door was opened just a few seconds later. A flood of warm air greeted him, and with it the smell. 

_Ugh,_ was the first thing on his mind. Billy stood there, shirtless, sweating like a bull. The sight was that of a high school kid who’d not only bought into the system but then swallowed it whole, had rammed it down his throat. And the smell was … well … _overwhelming_. 

“Ugh” was also the first thing to come out of that creature’s mouth. “What are you, scrape of dirt from the road? A ferret walking upright with a bowlcut?” Oh yes laugh at your funny jape, what creativity! Never heard that one before … 

For a moment Jonathan just stared, perplexed at the clich\E9 which he’d found in front of him. 

Oh _fuck_ this. At least most bullies had a sidekick to laugh for them, to make them seem less arrogant. What pathetic joke was this? Well, he’d try talking anyways. Maybe this particular one responded to accentuated calmness in a normal voice. Sometimes that worked; bullies, Jonathan’d found, were too convinced they’d get shouts or tears as a response, so sometimes mundane normality would seem shocking and unexpected. So, dear great proud bully, where’s your unfortunate sister? 

“Wow. I heard you were a peeker, Jonny, but ugh, man, that’s low even for you. She’s what, ten?” 

Ah, so Billy didn’t. Good to know. Jonathan felt inexplicably tired. Any other strategies? 

“ _She’s thirteen, you bag of shit._ And now get out the way. If she doesn’t want to see me she can tell me herself.” 

The words were harsh; Jonathan had to turn and look before he could accept that Lucas was capable of producing such a voice. 

“You!” The clich\E9 on the doorstep found it in himself to hiss. “I’ll—” 

“Step aside and let me in. Or maybe should I remind you of what happened last time? I’m sure Steve would let me borrow that bat again if I went and asked. You know, the one with the nails? Want a little sleep again?” 

Even this beast Billy recoiled at that threat. 

“Your sister might be nice enough to stop before you’re mincemeat, but I won’t. Now _let._ _me. in._ ” 

“You can’t—” Whatever his words, Billy was too slow to resist when Lucas hurried past him. Jonathan was left standing at the door, feeling somewhat useless. 

Billy picked up on that quick. “Still don’t have an answer,” he taunted, “what are you? Someone on high school who needs the help of a scrawny little kid?” 

Jonathan leaned against the frame of the door. Would it wind the guy up if he simply wasn’t interested? 

“ _Can’t you fucking speak?_ ” 

Oh yes it would. 

This was familiar ground again; all he had to do to make Billy even madder was not to answer. Well, that and hope he wouldn’t get physical. Except even while Billy was spitting out more insults, Lucas and Max appeared behind him. 

Lucas gestured, a quick dance of hands to convey something that Jonathan didn’t quite get. Then the two of them turned away again and opened the window at the far end of the hallway. _Oh fuck_. If Billy turned to look … 

Change of plans, then. “I could ask you the same thing, you know,” Jonathan began. He didn’t usually do this, but someone needed to distract Billy or this would all end in big shit. “What exactly are you?” 

That got him a stare, and then a laugh. “Hey, it talks, who’d have thought! Well, who do you think I am?” 

Jonathan considered this. “Well you can’t be human,” he reasoned, “No human’d ever volunteer to listen to this sort of …” words failed his distaste; a few vague gestures towards the stereo blasting away would have suffice. Jonathan tried not to panic. This wasn’t what he did, taunting the bullies back. How did one do that? What if he’d get punched and knocked out and hurt and— 

_Okay_ , he told himself while Billy laughed away, _stay calm. Think about what you have to_ _do._ Behind Billy, at the far end of the house, he could see Lucas helping Max climb out the window. Assuming they both made it out fine, then, then _(don’t panic now stay calm calm_ _calm)_ then they’d need to run away and he’d have to pick them up on some point, which— 

“Ah don’t trouble yourself with that, piece of shit like you can’t expect—”— _shut it off_ _don’t listen don’t pay attention think!_

—which meant he’d have to get back to the car without Billy on his heels. A glance back. Nice, make the bully think you’re thinking about fleeing. Which, incidentally, you sort of are. Lucas had closed the car door on his side. Unfortunately, so had Jonathan on his, which would mean a little delay before he could hop in. Then he’d have to start the engine … _time_ , that was what he needed. 

Behind Billy, Max was now out the window. Lucas passed something down to her, then followed suit. _Shit shit shit it’s now I have to do something before he notices!_ Mindless, Jonathan lashed out. No speech, no plan, just the truth of what he knew. 

“You wanted an answer? Well here it is. You’re highschool’s little new tyrant. Oh sure, everyone’s pretended to like you ever since you beat King Steve at basketball, but what’ya think how many actually do? And sure, you think it doesn’t matter, ’s all fine and great, I mean, they don’t actually _have_ to like you, do they? They’ll all grumble, but they’ll pretend the way they always do. Well good luck with that. Not sure how it’s been for you ’til now, but over here I’ve seen the basketball kings come and go; before long you’ll be history, too, just another irrelevant dumb little idiot fighting with the rest of the bunch until they all notice that they’ve become exactly what they’ve always hated. Rather a lot of effort, really, gotta stay at the top of that game all the time or else you’re meat, can’t do anything else either, I mean, look at you, sweating here like this, do you have any idea how ridiculous you look? Ah but train enough maybe you’ll get strong enough to beat them all, then beat your father, and then when you’re finally on top of all you can beat down on them as they all did on you, I mean in fact you’re already doing a pretty good job with it, just look at Max—” 

_Enough enough don’t go on forever he already looks ready to punch!_

For a moment, Billy looked stunned. Behind him, Lucas was out the window and now did his best to close it from the outside. Most of them were stunned; Nancy’d been, too, that day they’d searched for Will and Barb. And then, right when the bully started laughing at Jonathan’s oh-so-obvious absurdity— 

Jonathan shoved him back, both hands on that hideously sweaty naked torso. It’d worked. Billy was too surprised to resist much; he stumbled backwards just as Jonathan closed the door on him and ran back to the car. 

Open car door. Get in. Try to get rid of Billy’s sweat on your hands—ugh, now the stuff’s all over the steering wheel—close door again, try to ignore Billy’s shouts as he opens the front door again and comes after you. Start the engine. Fail. Don’t shiver! Try again. 

Billy was out the door and rushing towards him. 

Engine running. Good. Put in reverse, now _drive!_

Billy still ran after him. Now stop, see where the street is, change gear, start again! 

Step on that damn pedal! 

_Away!_ Huhhhw. Deep breaths, in, out, slowly, slowly, yes, good. 

Jonathan was amazed at his own heartbeat. His mind was worked up, too; thoughts still in turmoil from what he’d hurled at Billy. _Really, though,_ he thought. _What’s the use in_ _being king? Much better live low. Easier, too, and you get to read Vonnegut and like the_ _Clash without people judging you more than you’re already used to._ That was a kind of freedom, too, he guessed. As angry at the world as any bully, but much more laid back, and with better friends. 

At the next intersection he waited for Lucas and Max to catch up. When they arrived they were both out of breath, but at least Billy hadn’t seemed to notice that they’d slipped away fast enough to follow them. The two slipped onto the back bench of his car, sitting next to each other. 

“Hi Max.” If he were Steve, Jonathan guessed he’d now try to say something cool or at least give the impression that he wasn’t stressed out or anything like that. He wasn’t Steve, though, and he probably looked exactly as stressed out as he really was. 

“Hi.” She, too, was still breathing heavily. “Thanks for picking me up.” 

He glanced at her through the rear mirror. No doubt about it: she was a lot better at playing things cool than he was. They shared a knowing smile, and then Jonathan drove them away. 

  

* * *

  

It darkest night by the time they’d left Hawkins behind them and were heading out into the forest, back towards the cabin, when suddenly the world was wrong. 

Tires screeching, Jonathan stopped the car. 

“Fuck!” That was Max. Had she even put her seatbelt on? “What are you doing?” 

There they stood still in the middle of the road. This was winter; night’s darkness came early and so quick it made one really understand why people called it _nightfall:_ it felt like the fall of some solid curtain in a cinema, except the show didn’t stop when the screen was gone but continued on in the wide and unknown swaths of the now-dark chamber, where the known rules of life and life’s plot could not apply their reassuring might. Be careful, it whispered to him; be careful, young Jonathan, for beyond the well-trodden paths there might well be dragons. 

Not the best place to linger at, probably. No matter how shoddy his car was, there was no way he’d be able to afford a new one (or, incidentally, insurance for this one). 

Jonathan restarted, then drove them to the side, half into a field. Then engine off again. 

For a moment he leaned back in his seat, thinking hard. There was something … he opened the door, leaned into the ice-cold air that streamed towards him and then _listened_. 

Somewhere off in the distance a car drove, and that was all he heard. But … 

“Jonathan, what are you—” Lucas didn’t get to finish his question, because by then Jonathan had jolted, bolted, ripped something out the glove compartment and was gone. 

“Something’s wrong,” where the last words they heard from him before the night swallowed him up. 

  

* * *

  

Jonathan ran. The cold cut through his clothes _(be careful)_ , but he ran, ran ran towards the trees on the far side of _(beyond)_ the chopped-down, snow-covered wheat field where he’d parked next to. This here was no path _(the well-trodden_ _paths)_ , and every step was a fight with snow one foot deep, but Jonathan did not stop. 

Something was there _(there might well)_ , in the trees _(be)_. Jonathan knew. Some things in this world he really did just know. 

He ran towards it. 

_(Dragons)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I somehow keep wanting to make Jonathan into an actual autonomous leftist, but
> 
> (a) he lives in Hawkins, a town which by definition is boring; its entire "counterculture" probably exists of our characters who have radical ideas such as "the Clash is cool" or "I like playing DnD"
> 
> (b) Wikipedia tells me that the autonomous left doesn't really exist outside of (Western) Europe (and to be honest, even just the expression "autonomous left" sounds very weird to me when I translate it to English)
> 
> (c) Jonathan is many things, but violent is not one of them (though violence isn't strictly necessary, even if common)
> 
> Anyways, some shades of it may still show up because I can't get rid of the mental image. I wonder if he's as much a fan of Sartre as he is of Vonnegut … (but again: did Sartre even _exist_ in a town like Hawkins during the 80ies? He got a Nobel prize—though being Sartre, he attempted to refuse it—so I guess he must have at least in that capacity, but apart from that?)
> 
> Oh, also, Max got away, so that's good. Jonathan just ran off into the night, which that isn't as good. Also, I took longer than I'd have liked to upload this _again_ , and S3 is coming out in a couple days even though I wanted to be done by then (as an excuse: I didn't really have internet access for a couple days).
> 
> Well whatever, hope you had fun reading!
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


	8. Will: Midnight Conversations

“ _Will!_ ” 

A deep, heavy breath, and Will had snapped awake. Somebody’d shouted his name. 

“ _Will!_ ” 

Whose call was this? Somebody had shouted. But then why had Will not heard anything? Hello, Will’s brain to Will’s ears: what the hell’s going on, am I hearing anything? No? The room lay silent in the dark, only the barest hint of moonlight shone in through the closed shutters of the cabin. 

How could he hear shouting when there wasn’t any sound? Why did this feel so familiar, so, so … so as if he’d heard that voice before? 

“Will, are you okay?” This time it was a whisper, and for a moment it felt almost unfamiliar to hear it with his ears, a jag back into abnormal reality. El. Will’s mattress lay on the left side of her bed—Mike slept to her right—and when he strained his eyes Will could just barely make out El’s face floating in the darkness above him. A hand reached down from the bed; he took it and grasped it tight. 

Only now did he notice that he was still shuddering. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. 

“You’re wet,” El told him. She was right, he was. Sweating; his skin felt glued to his pajama, his body as if it were overheating even as his skin froze on the outside. El didn’t say anything else. 

Will clung to her hand. 

Then, finally, “You?” Had he woken her, thrashing, screaming in the night? Will knew he did that sometimes, loud enough for it to go through walls and call in Jonathan or his mum. Suddenly he felt sick again, and this time it was unrelated with the images he’d dreamed of, got nothing to do with the picture of a thousand smokey tendrils boring their way into his every pore, through nose and eyes and ears and mouth, through clothes, even from below, then on through every vein and every nerve until it had encompassed his body entirely. He’d been afraid of this, he realized; as if there hadn’t been enough reasons to be nervous about this party, Will had just found another. He’d woken someone else. He’d walked in here, knowing how he was and how he could so seldom sleep, had willingly forced his problems onto his unsuspecting friends … 

He couldn’t see El, but still felt that she shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. One thing he’d learned this afternoon was how stunted her speech was. Slow, sure, sometimes searching for words like someone who’s first language wasn’t English, but … this went deeper, too. There were almost never any subclauses. Usually her face and tone of voice made up for it; even when she was unable to express something in words, it was easy to guess what she meant. 

Now it might be too dark to see, but somehow he still got what she’d wanted to say. _You’re not the only one. I woke up, too._ As well she might. She’d lived her childhood in a torture chamber; she wasn’t likely to forget it in a year. 

Her voice. Why had he heard her voice when she hadn’t spoken? Why did he knew what she’d meant now when he couldn’t see her face? 

For a moment he shuddered again … and then a memory came to him, unbidden, and yet he knew it’d been what he’d been searching for. Every now and then, when he tried really hard to remember something and couldn’t, it’d come to him, without warning, hours later when it had most often ceased to be important, and suddenly he’d be ready to pick up a conversation that no longer existed at all. 

Except now … El was still here. 

“Hello,” he said, his voice suddenly shaky, “I must’ve picked up your signal. I’m Will Byers, from Hawkins, Indiana. Who are you? Do you copy?” 

He had no radio now, no supercomm, nothing to record and send his voice. It didn’t matter. 

“Hello?” El’s voice chilled him to his bones. She spoke in a slightly higher voice than usual, making herself sound younger and more afraid, and … 

“Papa says I was bad. It is dark here …” 

“It _was_ you.” 

“Yes.” 

How often had he wondered who was behind that voice? He grasped her arm tighter. 

“We saw us today. We can … we can _touch_.” 

“Yes.” 

Had there been dreams, had there been sweat and nightmares? Suddenly Will only wanted to laugh. How disappointed he’d been when the voice had not come back after he’d survived his week in the Upside-Down! Relief flooded over him, the drunken feeling that came with overwhelming knowledge … 

For a moment he couldn’t speak, couldn’t comprehend it, not quite yet. 

“When … when I didn’t do what Pa– what Brenner wanted, he’d put me into a little room and lock me in.” Will could do nothing but listen to El’s whispered words. “There was no light, and of course no window—I remember I didn’t know about windows back then, the only window I knew was the one in the … in the bathtub … the first real window I ever saw was at Benny’s … it was completely dark. Not like this. This is bright, I can still see you. A little. But really dark. Black. And … they always wanted me to listen to people. Maybe Mike told you. I need the dark, I think. When it’s dark I can listen. Few distractions then. And … ” 

“And I was there, close by, and you found me.” It still sometimes made his skin crawl, the fact that he’d lived within barely two miles of her all his life. The fact that two miles from his house, a girl was kept locked up all her life. That was a plot for some deranged horror flick, not for someone’s life. 

“Yes. I saw you, and heard you, and sometimes … sometimes you heard me.” 

Will considered this. 

“Mike told me that you recognized me on a photo, and that this was when he knew that I hadn’t just disappeared.” 

A moment of silence, then—“Yes.” 

He had to let that sink in. All of it. 

For a while, neither of them talked. 

Then—“It’s special with you, you know.” 

“What?” 

“When I’m in the void. I see … see _ed_ …”—“saw,” Will supplied—“ _saw_ you even though I didn’t know you. Usually I need at least a picture, and I have to search for them. But you … I found you without even looking.” 

Again a pause. 

“And I don’t know why, but … I can never talk to others. I can use loudspeakers, sometimes. But talking directly … no. Except you heard me.” No need to tell him on what occasion. He still sometimes heard her, in his mind. _Your mum, she’s_ _coming for you. Just hold out a little longer._ After that, he’d been strong enough to sing again. Strong enough to run that final time before they’d dragged him out. 

“And I heard you,” he said. “Just now. I heard you call my name, that was what woke me up. But you didn’t actually say anything, did you?” 

As if to prove his point, she shook his head, and although Will couldn’t see hear he still knew she’d done it. 

There was a large, old-fashioned clock in the living room, and for a while they were so quiet that even through the door they could hear it clicking the seconds and minutes away. Sometimes Mike or Dustin or Lucas turned in their sleep, and then they heard that, too. Each still grasped the other’s hand tight like a lifeline while relentless time trickled by the wayside. 

They listened to the sound of the other breathing, a constant reassurance that they weren’t alone. 

“I’m sorry about this,” said Will, after a while. 

“You didn’t wake me.” 

“No, but …” 

“And if you were sleeping, we wouldn’t had … wouldn’t _have_ had this conversation. You still wouldn’t know that we know each other.” 

The absurdity of that sentence made Will smile. Still, she had him stumped. Usually when he woke up during the nights his mother or Jonathan would come and comfort him, and after a while he’d say sorry, sorry that he’d woken them up, and then he’d try to go back to sleep. Oh, of course they always told him that he had nothing to apologize for, but how was he to believe that? 

_(Once, only once, had_ he _been woken, by Jonathan sobbing in the night. He’d walked over_ _into his brother’s bedroom, and as soon as Jonathan had seen him he’d sobbed more and then_ _hugged and embraced him and finally apologized for waking him, and Will had told him that_ _he nothing to apologize for, but it’d never occurred to Will think of himself as he thought of_ _Jonathan)_

But now … he _hadn’t_ woken El up. And of course he knew that this shouldn’t matter, that it should be completely coincidental, but somehow it _did_ matter. Being less of a burden was easier to bear. 

And for the first time, he tried to formulate this into words. Maybe it was quiet that did it, or the epiphany of re-finding a mysterious friend whom he’d made over a cracking radio, but suddenly he wanted to speak it out. 

“I know, but … It’s like, I do this all the time. _All the time,_ El. I just … I just wake up screaming, or … or mum’s there, telling me I was shouting something while I was sleeping and … and … I never really see it, you know? It’s not like in stories, where people dream what they’ve been through over and over again. It’s _worse_. I just dream … I dunno, anything, just some normal dream and suddenly it’ll be there, not even the monster as I remember it, the shadow rising on the horizon, but just … the feeling of it. That makes it worse, somehow. At least if it were the shadow I’d recognize it, but … instead, suddenly there’s something that comes over me, and I feel that I cannot move and then I see that I _do_ move but can’t control it … it’s always that. That or waiting for it. It’s never what I remember, but it’s the same feeling. And …” he was crying by now, sobbing, with tears streaming down his face “—and then something else’ll happen, I … I’ve seen myself chocking Mike or … or shooting Lucas and I could do _nothing_ and I’m just so sick of it, because it’s never the same but it _is_ , too, it’s the same thing almost every night and I’ll wake up and, but, I don’t even realize I’m asleep and how could I want to wake up when I don’t know I’m sleeping and—” 

He was fully crying now, he realized, too far gone to really talk anymore. 

“and when I’m awake I’ll think that if I’d done something else, if I’d resisted more, if I hadn’t just let it get me and use me so, then that maybe, maybe …” 

He could just barely hear El say firmly “Stop” before she found a much more effective way to shut him up: Suddenly, in the dark, with almost now warning, El fell down from her bed and half onto Will. More surprised than frightened Will yelped and fell silent. 

El, meanwhile, snuggled closer to him. 

“Just … don’t,” she said. “Those thoughts don’t ever help.” 

But that only made it worse. “I _know_ that! I’ve known it for years and years since they bullied me at school, but I just _can’t help it,_ I’ll just think about it again and again even when I don’t want to and I know I shouldn’t and—” 

He was cut off by El pressing herself closer to him. 

“I know. I do the same. I think,” she said, and then took a deep breath as if to brace herself from some unseen mental impact, “I think that if I’d only been a little stronger, if maybe I hadn’t lifted that van quite so high I wouldn’t have been so tired later and wouldn’t have disappeared when the monster did, or that if only I had pushed the heathkit a little more I could’ve talked to you earlier instead of just listening, that if I hadn’t just run away when I saw Max with Mike, that if I hadn’t just believed he’d forgotten me, that then I would’ve been able to save everyone, I even still think about how if I hadn’t been bad so often in the lab Papa would’ve been kinder to me, I think …” 

She breathed heavily now, and was almost sobbing herself. 

“I think about so much. Not all the time, but sometimes. Sometimes it just all comes back, and … and, well, _you’re not alone, Will_. You’re not the only one. I went to Mike’s house the night when I disappeared and found it swarmed with agents, and all I could do is stare through the window and hope that he’d see me. I still think that if I’d just done a little more I could’ve walked in there and the entire last year would never have happened and Bob wouldn’t have died. I—” 

But now, finally, it was her turn at being cut off. 

“But that’s just _bullshit_.” For half a moment Will was surprised at his own choice of words, before going on, “You’re _not_ responsible for Bob’s death, you weren’t even there! If anything, then it was _my_ fault, _I_ let the mind flayer set the trap that killed him, I let Him into my memories, I’m the reason that the mind flayer knows anything about this town!” 

“But you’re not!” For a moment, El hesitated. They were getting too loud. She repeated, more quiet now, “You’re not. You fought it off for long enough to give us a message that let us win. You gave us a way to kill it, and you must’ve known that it’d kill you, too. You fought it, Will. You fought it more than I did, I think. I just had to push it away from me. For you, you had to push it away when it was _already in_ _you._ ” 

For a moment, then, Will was silent. _You must’ve known that it’d kill you, too._ God, yes. Of course he’d known it’d kill him. He’d _welcomed_ that, he’d silently cheered for his own death. He’d known that the mind flayer knew everything he did, knew every plan Will could conceivably come up with in advance. It’d made exactly two mistakes: it’d been confused when his mum and Jonathan and Mike had told him their stories in that garden shed, and it hadn’t considered that Will might consider his own death to be an acceptable outcome. After Will had realized that, it’d only been a question of working it out. Will played DnD, he was good at figuring out strange solutions to bizarre situations. 

That he was still alive in spite of it was a miracle, and one that Will hadn’t really accepted even now, months later. 

“I … ” For the fist time, he genuinely didn’t know what to say. “I … I … I still could’ve done more. Sooner. If I hadn’t thought that I could trick it …” 

“If anyone’s, that is my fault.” Fright overran Will for a moment at the unexpected voice, but it was only Mike, Mike, Mike whom they must’ve woken, Mike who should’ve been sleeping soundly, I’m sorry Mike, Mike, Mike, I didn’t want to load all this on you—another thing to feel bad about, just add it to the list, will ya? But Mike did not—could not—care about the worries which Will kept to himself. 

“I told you,” Mike said instead, “I told you you were the spy, Will. I gave you that dumb idea that you should try to fight it on its own ground. And afterwards it took me too long to realize that it didn’t work out. If I’d been just a little quicker in realizing that—or if I hadn’t made that dumb suggestion in the first place—maybe the lab would never have been overrun …” 

While talking, Mike had climbed up on El’s now empty bed and crawled across towards them. 

“Sorry for waking you,” said El. 

Will heard fabric shift, and when Mike said “doesn’t matter,” he figured that he must’ve just shrugged, but unlike with El he didn’t feel it, didn’t _know_ it immediately. 

“It’s not your fault, Will,” he said. “And it’s not yours, El, either.” He sighed. “Do you realize how ridiculous this is? It’s the middle of the night, and we’re arguing about who’s fault something that can’t be changed is, and each one’s insisting that only they are to blame.” 

Will snorted. Now that Mike had put it like this, it really did seem rather pointless. That was the trouble in arguing with Mike. Will could never disagree with him; after one sentence and a laugh he always felt as if some deep and profound insight had just been spoken, even if Mike’d been talking complete and utter bullshit. 

And this time it wasn’t bullshit. Will hurried to get his mind back in order. 

“Maybe …” he paused, trying hard not to jumble the words together. “Maybe it’s better this way,” he said. “At least, if we all blame ourselves, we’re not blaming each other.” 

“And we can tell each other that,” El added. “Each the other. It’s not your fault, Will, or yours, Mike.” 

“Or yours.” Mike and Will spoke unison. 

“Yes. If we can all tell each other that … we all stick together, right? Better that than arguing. And we can all help each other.” 

“You can call me, you know?” That was Mike. “On the supercomm. If you ever wake up and … well, and need someone to talk with, you’re allowed to just wake me up. I keep it next to my bed. Just let that thing crack until I answer.” 

“Yeah.” Will said. “Me as well. Call me whenever you want.” 

El nodded. “Me too.” 

They stayed awake for a little longer, though after a while El climbed back up into her own bed, and Mike returned to his mattress. And then, finally, after many assurances and sleep-wells, all three drifted back to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for interrupting the action and leaving Jonathan and the others hanging somewhere in the middle of nowhere in this chapter; I promise they'll show up again in the next one.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading,
> 
> Gazyrlezon


	9. Max: The Fuck, Man?

_What the fuck?_ Jonathan had just thrown the door closed; within a second he was gone. _Gone_. What the _fuck?_ What were they supposed to do, alone in the night, without him? 

Jonathan’d killed the engine, and already Max could feel the cold creep in from outside, creeping through even closed (though badly isolated) doors and windows towards them like some unseen many-armed monster wrapping its slings around her. 

_It’s still better than at home, though,_ she thought. It was, too. Here it might be cold, they might be alone for no clear reason, but at least there was a _they_. Even with winter lurking just outside the car—Lucas was here, and that mattered more than frostbite. 

Still, when he’d dragged _(rescued)_ her from her house _(Billy’s lair)_ , she’d not expected _this._ This whole situation was just bizarre. She turned to Lucas. “That’s not … normal for him, is it?” A helpless gesture towards the great unknown outside, into which Jonathan had disappeared. 

This was definitely weird, right? People didn’t just jump out of cars with no warning and run off into the wild. 

“Hell no.” If anything, Lucas looked more baffled than she did herself. Maybe he and Jonathan weren’t the best of friends, but this was not as much disappointing as it was simply _baffling_. It made no sense. 

Max knew no answer except the obvious question: 

“So what do we do now?” 

Lucas shrugged. “No idea.” 

Well, _great_. 

Max leaned forwards from her seat and tried to peak at the car’s dashboard. Well, she could probably drive it. If she had a key; there was none there. Jonathan must’ve taken it with him. Well, shit. 

“You don’t happen to know how to jumpstart a car?” 

“What?” Lucas looked horrified. Max sighed; she loved him, but sometimes Lucas was simply too sweet. Either case, there went that possibility. The way she was seeing things, that left only two others: leave and follow their fugitive driver, or stay here. 

Maybe someone’d drive by and help them … 

No. That was not an option. Not only because Max wasn’t convinced that a universe that gave her Billy and his father would provide some magically nice rescue man, but also because of something else: Jonathan barely knew her, but he must know Billy from school. He’d risked Billy for someone he barely knew. That was her decision made. 

For a moment she considered, planned. It would be damned cold outside. 

“Is there a first-aid kit in this car?” she asked. 

  

* * *

  

Running in an emergency blanket was _shit_. It got crinkly and crackled, had holes for neither arms nor legs, and even in the night’s dead silent darkness it somehow still managed to find light that it could reflect; in short, it irritated Max to no end. But if she ran around in normal clothes she’d freeze to death. Lucas had grabbed a jacket for her just before they’d escaped through the window, but it wasn’t the thick one for the winter—that one had been hanging next to the front door, after all, unreachably close to Billy. So instead Max was stuck with her old one, the funny thin thing she’d called a _winter jacket_ back in California, when she’d not yet known how cold cold could be. 

She’d needed something to keep her alive, and weren’t those shiny blankets meant to keep one warm? _You know, those were made for the moon landings,_ Lucas the nerd had told her while they’d searched for it, _they needed something light and thin to make the moon_ _lander out of, so they invented this._ Even Max had to admit that sounded insanely cool. 

Still, it wasn’t very comfortable. Yellow or golden side inwards? She never remembered. It was warmer than without it, in any case. Well, between neck and legs she was warm, or at least not as cold as she could’ve been. Arms, feet, and her head though … But she needed to see something, so her head was out in the open and freezing, and with her shoes it had been the same as with the jacket: she had only those for the summer. Fuck Billy. 

About halfway across the deserted, flat slob of a snowed-in field they were trying to cross without stumbling over any unseen obstacles potentially lurking beneath the white blanket Max got the wild urge to extend one hand and cling to Lucas. It was dark, and she could barely see him; what if they lost each other? Also his hand was probably warmer than hers; at least he was _used_ to the cold; he’d grown up with it. Plus he had a better jacket. Also it’d probably look pretty cool, the two of them running hand in hand, even if no one ever saw that. Didn’t matter; this would be for the two of them, not for someone else. 

Except when she tried extending her hand the blanket almost flew away and made her look like Apollo 13 just after the explosion, shiny crinkly space foil flying everywhere. Oh _shit_ , this was cold. Okay. So no holding hands then. For a moment they stopped while Lucas helped her to rearrange it all. 

Slowly they got closer to where the trees started and Jonathan’s trail ended. 

“ _JONATHAN!_ ” Her shout vanished somewhere in the distance, and was left unanswered. 

“ _JONATHAN!_ ” Lucas tried it, too. 

They had little idea of where he’d run beyond the field. There he’d broken the thick blanket of snow and they’d been able to follow in his tracks. Lucas had almost fallen into the snow several times while running (not Max, though—zoomers didn’t just stumble over dead twigs), but otherwise they’d been fine. But after the field? There was almost no snow beneath the trees. Certainly not much of a track. So where to now? 

Out of breath, they came to a halt behind the first row of thick old elms and oaks. This here wasn’t a wild wood from the looks of it; so at least they didn’t have to fight themselves through bushes and undergrowth. 

But even with Lucas’s flashlight—of course Lucas had a flashlight in his backpack, along with knife and wrist-rocket and his binoculars, he was _Lucas_ —it was hard to make out much of a track. 

“Here, I think,” Lucas said, still panting. “And then here …” 

Max saw the next one: “and here …” 

It was slow work, and they were both cold and miserable. Max had no watch, but Lucas had one—of course he had—and according to that one it was past eight already. They’d had sports at school, two periods; after that Max had skated home and then spent the rest of the day screaming at her life. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was _exhausted_. 

If Jonathan had still been running when he’d come through here, then this was the moment where they could forget all hopes of ever catching up with him. 

“You know what this reminds me of?” Lucas asked into the silence. “When Will had disappeared we went out, me, Mike and Dustin. It wasn’t winter, but that night was cold, too. No … I remember it was raining. Like, a real thunderstorm. At least it’s not raining now …” 

“That was the night you found El, right?” Max’s words hung as fog in front of her. 

“Yeah,” said Lucas, walking a couple steps further. “It was. We did find El that night. She was all … ” for a moment Lucas seemed to drift off, something almost like nostalgia in his eyes. “I thought she was a boy at first, she still had her hair short. She was soaked, too, only had that yellow shirt on that went down to her knees … has Mike ever shown it to you? It’s still in the corner of his basement.” 

“I saw it last time we were there, yeah,” she said, but did not mention that it had been Will who’d pointed it out to her, not Mike. “But I mean … that night you found her, but you didn’t find Will.” 

Lucas seemed to consider this. “Yeah,” he admitted at last, and suddenly Max wished she’d never said a word. “We didn’t.” 

“ _JONATHAN!_ ” 

Still no answer. Unrelenting, Lucas followed Jonathan’s trail a bit further, Max close behind him. Suddenly it occurred to her that, really, this was one absurd shit situation she was in right now. Ever since moving to Hawkins she’d complained about everything; how small the town was, how boring, how she knew no one, how cold it was already in autumn, how freaky cold it got during December until by early January it felt as if her eyes might freeze over, how after two months she knew fucking _everyone_ in the whole fucking town and hated each and every one of them; she’d complained about her step-dad and his son, their house, the bumpy roads, the school. And yet here she was. Middle of the night, practically, since here beyond the arctic circle the night started at something like three pm, and somehow she saw no problem searching for a guy she’d talked to maybe three times and who’d abandoned them in the middle of the road, accompanied by someone she still sometimes called _stalker_ (though she’s say it with a smile). Somewhere in her life something must’ve gone colossally wrong. But then why did this feel more comfortable than giving Billy the finger after he’d drove her to her school? 

And well, the cold was shit. The blanket from Jonathan’s first-aid kit might make her look like some cool spaceship, and sure, it helped, but not a lot. But apart from that? Somehow she wasn’t scared. Usually she pretended that everything was cool, or at least tried to, no matter what happened, but internally she was screaming. 

Except right now? She wasn’t. The whole situation was absurd and probably dangerous and there was a fair chance that her step-dad would ground her for a month or just loose control and punch her to jam, or that she’d simply freeze to death here, and yet she didn’t care one fucking bit. 

Was it her sense for danger that was wrong, or just the rest of world? Because somehow, having Lucas with her was enough. 

Quite a thought, actually. Quite some trust, too. When had that happened? Oh, yeah, right, they’d scorched an underground fleshy monster thing the week they’d met. Sometimes she forgot that really had been real. 

It almost felt like slipping back into that. Like there were two versions of her, and two versions of Lucas, and even two versions of this shitty town they lived in: first, there was the normal version. The outside. They one everyone convinced themselves was the only one. In that version there was an arcade where an angry girl called Max spent most of her spare time if she could afford it; there was a school, a supermarket, a bar, a cinema, all that. Shitty people, too. 

And then there was the other version. Beneath the first one. In a way, it was maybe the truer version. The one full of alien space tunnels and portals to other worlds and government conspiracies and shit like that. Of course that was all always present, just a little; every time someone said El’s name it was there, just the barest thought in the back of one’s mind; it was there when Will looked slightly sick or as if he hadn’t slept last night. Even so, it was never really present. Never more than a distant memory, always with a bit of doubt attached that maybe it all hadn’t been real. Maybe they’d all gotten drugged and had a collective hallucination or … well, something like that. Whatever. Human brains were good at ignoring stuff, at rationalizing the weird away. 

But right now? Right now it was like that other, _deeper_ version of Hawkins had swallowed them up whole. 

And now, finally, suddenly, once she’d realized all that, Max was deeply and truly afraid. 

She didn’t know if Lucas had noticed it; he was still searching the ground for more clues. Probably not. Hell, he’d lived here all his life. He’d been there the first time. Maybe, for him, there weren’t two versions at all. Maybe, to him, it was all just one, and normal Hawkins could include things like a gigantic underground tunnel system dug by alien space monsters from another dimension. 

If so, then she admired him. If she would have to live with that all the time, she’d surely have gone mad long ago. 

“ _JONATHAN!_ ” Lucas’s shout, so like a shriek, only made it all more real. Oh God, it was all real. Max let her eyes glide over the trees around them. By now, they were a fair bit into the forest, and she could hardly see the field where they’d left the car. Everything had been real, everything she remembered happening really _had_ happened. Any one of these trees here might hold, might hold— 

“Max?” 

Suddenly it was Lucas who searched for her hand. She let him take it, then looked at what he was staring. Because this time it wasn’t another footstep on the ground, it was … 

Well, it wasn’t a tree. Or, no, it _was_ a tree, but it was a tree in the same way it would be a tree if you made a tree-shaped hole into a piece of paper; it was less an actual tree than the precise _lack_ of one. It was like someone’d taken the image here on film and then carefully erased the tree trunk’s bark and replaced it with some cheap red glowy effect. All that remained of it was that it was quite definitely _not_ present. 

Lucas stared at the gate. Max stared, too. Jonathan’s trail led right into it. 

  

* * *

  

Somehow the fear was gone. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe her body had drugged itself so much that she no longer felt anything, but this far into the second version of this world fear seemed like something ridiculous and insignificant that they’d left long behind. Here it was all real, she knew that now (again). 

She turned to Lucas. 

“You ever been? In there?” 

“No. You?” 

“No.” 

His voice almost broke, but then, so had hears. Somewhat shivering (from the cold, of course, only from the cold and nothing else, come on Max, it’s only the cold that’s making you shiver, don’t panic …) they walked up to it. 

Max extended one hand from beneath her space blanket into the gate. Eww. It was full of something like spiderwebs that broke beneath her touch, except that unlike the dead mass of a spider’s web this one felt alive and pulsating, and when she let it go the web closed itself and grew back together. Urgh. 

Okay. One final breath. Was that Lucas squeezing her hand to comfort her, or was he the one seeking comfort by clinging to her? Maybe it was both. 

Hand in hand, they stepped through. Just at the threshold Lucas’s flashlight began to flicker. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, remember when I said I wanted to make these updates a little more often and regular?
> 
> Yeah. Whoops.
> 
> Anyways, here's the next chapter—I hope you enjoyed reading it!—and I really intend to get the next one up quicker.
> 
> (Oh, by the way: as you can perhaps gleam from this chapter, I _really_ don't like how Lucas and Max's relationship was written in season 3. But since I wrote all this before S3 had even come out I can hereby guarantee you this fic will be entirely free of any talk about different species!)


	10. Jonathan: Flipside

_I’m a spy._ That was his first thought upon entering that strange other world which his brother’s friends had given the name _the Upside-Down_. He’d not yet known this while he’d run, and not yet known this while stepping through. But suddenly it was obvious, crisp and clear. A spy. Something had been off here, wrong; something that’d tugged at him and he’d not return without knowing what it was. Better yet, maybe he’d even find out how to prevent it from spreading. 

A spy. 

Will had tried to be a spy, too. 

Jonathan considered this. But by then Will had already had the Mind-Flayer inside him. Maybe he could do what his brother couldn’t. 

The gate. He’d felt it even from the road, he was sure of that now. It was like … he didn’t know. Nancy might have some explanation; she always had. When they’d escaped the Demagorgon for the first time she’d had a theory about it scenting blood within the night. But he wasn’t Nancy. He’d just … _felt_ it, and run, towards it when it felt like he should turn the other way and flee. 

The best Jonathan could describe it was how he thought a moth might feel when drawn in by a light: It wasn’t a conscious thing. Just knowledge that there was something there, forceful, heavy-handed, energized, danger and wonder both. He hadn’t been able to control it, or even to pinpoint exactly where he’d been going. There was just something there that he had to investigate. 

_Investigate._ Nice word for it. As if he was some inter-dimensional journalist searching for stories. Pity he’d left the camera. Double pity that he couldn’t control this urge. It’d just been there, and he’d been too afraid to loose it again to wait even for a second … God, he’d not even explained it to Lucas and Max. Hopefully they’d stay put. 

This was dangerous. Jonathan himself had never been here before, but he knew it well enough from Nancy’s hushed and fearful words; and although he could accept the possibility of himself dying because of a stupid spur-of-the-moment decision he wasn’t prepared to take on that same responsibility for anyone else. Well, possibly Nancy, but she’d know what he was doing. 

God, if Lucas or Max tried to follow him … already he felt the guilt, at having run away so suddenly. 

But this was … it was still here. To the best of his understanding everyone’d expected these tears in the world to heal once El had chased the mind flayer away, and yet this gate was there, open wide enough that he’d gotten through. 

He had to see. Had to _know_. 

Jonathan’d taken his jacket off—it was warmer this side of the curtain—and slung it around his head in hopes of filtering out the spores and poison that was floating around in the air here. Frankly, he suspected it didn’t do much good apart from making him look like one of the Libyans from _Back To The Future_. But he could pretend, and even placebos had their effect. At the very least, it would keep him from panicking. 

This side was full of trees, too, except Jonathan didn’t want to linger around those for quite as long. 

In truth, he didn’t want to look at anything; he wanted to go back home, or to El’s party, as fast as possible—except El’s party seemed hardly real from here. But he had to _know_. If he peaked around and overlooked some threat to his family, his friends, Will, his mother, Nancy … 

And so he walked on. He was confident he’d find his way back to the gate. This side, this strange hunch he’d had was less pronounced, but it was still there. If he followed it again, he was sure he’d come back out, and hopefully unscathed. 

The Demagorgon, of course, was dead. Or at least, the original was. But this wasn’t just some vague lair for just one monster from just one cheap story. The more he walked through it the clearer it got to him that this really was its own world, with all the peculiarities and intricacies that brought with it. 

If provided with secure equipment, a biologist could probably spend years just studying how the ecosystem of this place worked. There weren’t just trees; there were all kinds of plants, from small grass-like feathery things sticking out the ground all the way up to enormous structures as large as any tree in the forests around Hawkins. In some ways it was a reflection of the real world, true; it appeared to have roughly the same geography, and Jonathan knew that there’d be something like a shadow of Hawkins if he’d go to the place where Hawkins was in the real world. 

Hell, why did he even differentiate between this and a “real world”? The one he’d grown up in wasn’t any realer than this one, that much was for sure. 

Maybe, in some ways, this world had similarities with the one he knew, but in others it was completely different. Dustin had said that Dart had liked cold instead of warmth. Will had said that, too. This place may be different, but no less complex. 

But humans—and the more he walked, the more acutely Jonathan was aware of this—didn’t form any part of this world. Here he was the invader. And whatever lived here, lying unseen in the shadows, might well decide it didn’t like him. 

But again, that seemed like an acceptable risk. Only one thing was really important, and he wasn’t here to count the many smaller monsters, or even to see if another Demagorgon had sprung up. 

Instead, Jonathan stared intensely at the sky of this place. Will had said he’d seen the shadow, even at night, rising into it, flying high above him— 

Was that? This shadow there, had that been—Jonathan craned his neck. Yes! Here, this cloud, did that look like what Will had described, could that be what he was searching for— 

A not-twig snapped close by. Startled he turned round to look. 

“What the hell, man?” Lucas began. Max stood next to him “I thought—” 

But whatever Lucas thought, it was cut off by screams and smoke and fear, and then all three of them were running, and running _fast_. 

Right into the black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hello again! Short chapter this time, but I promise the next one will be longer (and finally begin to sew the threads back together).
> 
> Hope you liked reading this one,
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


End file.
